


In Bloom For You

by parentaladvisorybullshitcontent



Series: Vampire AU [2]
Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Addiction, Blood and Gore, Broken Bones, Discussions of Death and Dying, Eventual Happy Ending, Explosives, Fire and burns, Friends to Lovers, Hospitals, Injury, Knife Wounds, M/M, Minor Character Death, Murder, Panic Attacks, References to Addiction, Slow Burn, Vampire AU, Violence, mild violence, mild vomiting reference, references to being buried alive, references to therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-08
Updated: 2018-04-16
Packaged: 2018-11-29 05:28:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 92,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11434119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/parentaladvisorybullshitcontent/pseuds/parentaladvisorybullshitcontent
Summary: "Even if you look...” Dan falters.“What?” Phil says. Dan's half-smiling, avoiding Phil's eye. “Even if I look what?”“Like,” Dan hesitates, licking his bottom lip, and Phil's heart squeezes tight in his chest for all of half a second. “Well, you don't look like a trained killer, put it that way.”In which Phil's an ex vampire hunter who's entirely too preoccupied by Dan's dimple and his eyes and his laugh to notice the fact that he might actually be in love with a vampire (Sequel to Hanging Out With Corpses)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I can't actually believe I'm posting this bc this main fic has been brewing since??? 2016 honestly, when the delightful eniworm gave me the idea, and now it's OUT IN THE WORLD (and it needs editing oh god the spacing is a MESS, forgive me)
> 
> This is a sequel to Hanging Out With Corpses and that fic kind of sets up the lore of this one, I guess? But if you want to read it without reading that one then FEEL FREE, honestly I understand why you wouldn't want to read a 10k+ fic just to understand this one. If you have any questions feel free to hmu on [tumblr ](http://parentaladvisorybullshitcontent.tumblr.com) ^^
> 
> And now I have a lot of people to thank!! The wonderful Eni (I wrote this for you, chuck!! I just hope you like it), the brilliant Group Chat™ (RIP discord), Alice for knowing the entire plot (and being the reason I write in the first place), palephantom for putting up with me constantly (you're the best), Georg for loving Dan and sharing my salt, Grace for the Skype chat support and holiday snaps, Charlotte for the Salty Support Group (I regret typing that), mania-jests for talking things through at ungodly hours....and a ton of other people I'm forgetting to mention but honestly, anyone I've mentioned this fic to (and there are a lot of you), you're all wonderful and I wouldn't be posting this without you. Thank you all <3 <3

Phil’s sitting on the roof of his apartment building with Dan.

  
Phil sometimes thinks he likes the city best after nightfall. Everything gross and imperfect gets glossed over by the dark, and streetlamps glow on street corners like stars.

  
Usually they sit facing the city – where green sprawls of parks are visible and everything buzzes with life. Tonight, they’re sitting facing the blue zone. The sweeping searchlight of the guard tower slips over houses and unkempt front gardens, throwing abandonment into sharp relief before it slides away again.

  
“It’s beautiful,” Dan says.

“Shut up,” Phil says, half-laughing just because of the sparkle in Dan’s eyes when he looks over at him. “Beautiful places aren’t usually full of red class vamps.”

  
Dan smiles. There’s something weird about the way his teeth look in the shadows for a second, something that almost makes Phil shudder. Except then he reaches out to touch Phil’s leg with a warm hand and his smile is ordinary and pretty again.

  
“We should live there,” He says.

  
Phil feels a little like the blue zone himself when Dan looks at him, his gaze sweeping over Phil, leaving him flustered.

“We can’t live in a blue zone,” He says, feeling like the conversation is getting away from him. He looks down at Dan’s hand on his leg, stroking back and forth. It feels like he has something stuck in his throat.

“I’d live anywhere with you,” Dan says softly, and kisses him. Just like that, with Phil’s feet hanging over the edge of the building, close enough to the edge that he could fall at any moment.

  
He’s just reaching out to touch the side of Dan’s face when he wakes up.

  
-

  
“Shit,” Phil says, rolling over in bed.

  
He can feel instantly that it’s unpleasantly balmy for an April evening, and he takes a while to disentangle himself from a sweaty tangle of bedcovers. Rubbing his crusty eyes with one hand, he stabs at his phone screen with another, yawning so hard his eyes water.

  
Then he wastes five minutes sitting slumped against the headboard, thinking about that dream. He wishes it was the first dream like that he’s had, but it’s not even the first one this _week_.

  
“Just because he’s one of your only friends,” He says to himself, scrubbing a hand through his hair. “Doesn’t mean you have to, like…” _Objectify him_ is the only sentence ending that comes to mind. Is that what he’s doing? Objectifying Dan?

  
It’s not like he can help it when he’s asleep, he thinks, finally forcing himself out of bed. He stumbles across the room, yawning again, and makes his bleary-eyed way to the bathroom. His glasses are sitting on the side of the sink where he left them and he shoves them onto his nose so he can squint at his pale reflection in the bathroom mirror.

  
He thinks he looks old. That’s all he sees when he looks at himself lately – all of the little lines around his eyes, the signs that his early twenties are nothing but a distant memory.

  
“And that’s why the dream was a dream,” He tells his reflection wryly, reaching for his toothbrush. “’Cause Dan probably only kisses people who are like…twenty three, or something. Under twenty five. You’ve got no chance.”

  
But the words are just that – words. His own self-remonstrations aren’t enough to kill the shoots of hope and feeling that are blossoming in his chest, flourishing more and more the more time he spends with Dan – the more Dan laughs at his stupid jokes, the more he walks Phil to work and shoots him fond looks when they’re having movie nights on Phil’s lumpy old sofa.

  
“Shut up shut up shut up,” He sing-songs to himself after he's dressed, giving his reflection one last check in the living room mirror. That’s one thing about whatever this is with Dan – he’s really started to care about showing up to work actually looking like he wanted to get out of bed, as opposed to his previous look of _I was dragged here by my ankles against my will_.

  
“Shut up,” He says to his reflection, once more for luck, then grabs his keys and rushes out of the door.

  
-

  
“No, ‘cause-“

  
“You wouldn’t answer yesterday-“

  
“Because I _couldn’t_ answer yesterday,” Phil says. He’s smiling so hard his face hurts, looking over at Dan leaning back against a bookshelf. He wishes he could take a photo of him like that – something about the relaxed nature of the pose and the fall of his wrists feels like something worthy of being committed to memory. So much so that Phil’s hardly focused on-

  
“Pine or Evans,” Dan says.

  
Phil groans and wheels the book trolley away from him, into the romance section, grinning privately to himself when he hears the soft pad of Dan’s carpeted footsteps following him.

  
“Just pick one, it’s not difficult-“

  
“I really liked Captain America,” Phil says. Dan catches his eye and waggles his eyebrows suggestively, and Phil snorts. “Shut up, I meant cinematically.”

  
“ _Shut up, I meant cinematically_ ,” Dan mimics in the worst northern accent Phil’s ever heard. “I mean those abs were pretty cinematic, I’ll give you that.“

  
“Shut _up_ ,” Phil hisses, realising they’re closer to the computers than he’d thought. Through the bookshelves he sees someone with a word document up on screen take one earphone out and turn in their direction. “Oh my God.”

  
They beat a hasty retreat to the main desk, giggling like schoolkids.

  
“You’re an idiot,” Phil tells Dan, touching the back of his hand to his cheek and feeling how red he’s gone.

  
Dan just grins.

  
“Chris Evans, then,” Phil says, just so he stops smiling at him like that.

  
“See, I’m gonna go with Pine,” He says, thoughtfully, following Phil behind the desk like he belongs there. “But I respect your choice.”

  
Phil just rolls his eyes and unhooks his walkie talkie from his belt to talk to Di.

  
“Bottom floor clear,” He tells her. “Approximately twelve down here.”

  
“Five up here,” comes the reply.

  
“Di,” Dan says, just as Phil’s about to tell her they’ll swap in half an hour. He leans in close so he can speak into the walkie talkie, and Phil gulps. “Sorry, hi, it’s Dan. Chris Pine or Chris Evans?”

  
There’s a pause when the two of them look at each other, both trying not to laugh, and Phil thinks maybe Di’s about to come downstairs and bodily throw Dan from the library for using a workplace channel to ask stupid questions.

  
“Couldn’t say,” She says after a moment, much to Phil’s surprise. “All those Chrises look the same to me. Phil, we’ll swap in 30. Over and out.”

  
“Legendary,” Dan says, solemnly, right before they both burst out laughing.

  
-

  
_Room Available in Fully Furnished Apartment. Prime city centre location, reasonable distance from nearby blue zones. Vampires welcome._

Phil stares at the blinking cursor after his last sentence, then deletes it. The last thing he wants to do is make it sound like he's throwing an all-you-can-eat buffet for red class vamps. He wants a flatmate, not a funeral.

But at the same time, he's seen all of the adverts that say the opposite. _No vampires, Living Applicants Only, NO BLOODSUCKERS._

He understands why people are reluctant to open their homes to vamps, but he feels like things are different now. He thinks about Bryony and her demonstrations, the _dead people are still people badge_ still pinned to Dan’s jacket. Vamps aren’t just mindless monsters, not anymore. Not that they ever were, but Phil knows people saw them that way once, years and years ago. Even when he was a kid, Phil’s family were more likely to teach him to kill first and ask questions later rather than wondering about someone’s classification colour and if they had a family waiting for them at home.

But now people know better, for the most part, and Phil knows better.

Living with a vamp wouldn’t be so bad, he thinks. He just has to phrase it properly so he doesn’t get mistaken for a feeder.

“Vampires,” He says out loud, sighing. “Vampires...vampires allowed?”

That doesn't look right either. He deletes it and re-types _vampires welcome_.

Just as he's about to delete the whole thing out of frustration, his phone rings next to his laptop. Dan's been texting him all morning, so when he says, “Hello?” he expects to hear Dan launching straight into whatever anecdote he'd been telling earlier (something about a pizza delivery guy and Dan _humiliating himself beyond all recognition_ , or whatever it is he’d said).

But it's his mum.

“Hello love,” She says. Phil has to stop himself stupidly scrambling to delete any mention of vampires from his advert, like he's twelve again and quickly shoving his Buffy videos under the loose floorboard in his bedroom. “I just wondered if you'd thought any more about coming back home to visit?”

He has. He’s thought about it a lot.

“Er, no, not really,” He says.

“Because it's been so long since we all went out together, and...”

And it'd be a family bonding activity, and Uncle Tom would be there, and hasn't it been a long time since they all saw Uncle Tom?

Uncle Tom's the one who'd taught Phil how to use a crossbow. That'd been one of the weapons he'd been excited to use as a kid, but his parents had been adamant that they wait until he was old enough. Never mind the fact that every other night in his childhood there'd be a scuffling in the back garden and the previously soft, welcoming family atmosphere would suddenly be shot through with a note of panic and alertness.

No, his parents had wanted him to have as ordinary a childhood as they could give him. But when he turned sixteen, Uncle Tom finally agreed to teach him how to shoot things.

Now, of course, he knows crossbows are outdated and barely in use, except by niche hunters and collectors, but when he'd been handed one to use he'd felt like he could do anything, like a little kid with a toy sword – that same kind of giddy excitement.

He still has that crossbow somewhere, locked up with the rest of his stuff. Phil wonders if dust can get through the cracks in his old packing case, turning all of his outdated weapons ghostlike and strange.

“I'll think about it,” He tells his mum. “Honestly, I just – everything's been so busy lately.”

“Ok,” His mum says. There's something about her tone of voice that makes him think she knows he's already made his mind up, and has no intention of thinking about it at all. Or maybe that's just the way mums always make you feel – like they can cut through all of your lies like kitchen scissors through thread. “Ok, well, just let me know, because...”

The door buzzer goes.

“Oh,” He says, getting up and crossing through to the front door, just as the buzzer goes again. “Someone's here, mum, sorry, I'll have to go. Love you.”

He hangs up and picks up the phone.

“I have pizza,” Dan's voice says. “And my charming company. And, erm, diet coke.”

Phil grins and presses the button to the outer door. When Dan appears outside a few minutes later, it turns out he wasn't lying about the pizza or the diet coke.

Or the charming company, for that matter. The way Dan smiles when Phil opens the door to let him in makes Phil wish he could draw, just to properly capture how it _feels_ , Dan's dimple and his sparkling eyes and the way he rolls his eyes and shuffles past Phil like it was an inconvenience to wait outside for all of two seconds.

“I thought you'd be hungry,” He's saying, trailing through to the living room.

Phil follows him, smiling to himself. He experiences a weird flashback to the first time he’d ever invited Dan into his flat. It’d taken convincing for some reason, and Phil had worried for days that Dan just didn’t want to hang out with him like that – or that Dan was interpreting Phil’s offers of coffee as something completely different.

It turned out that Dan’s just nervous in new places. Not that he’d explicitly said that, but it’d been obvious enough by the way he’d behaved – he'd lingered by the door, all twitchy and nervous, and hadn't sat down until Phil insisted he could.

It’s weird, remembering that Dan like he’s a different person while he watches Dan now, toeing off his shoes by the sofa and pulling a face at himself in the living room mirror. He catches Phil looking and grins, awkwardly, shaking the pizza box.

“It’s half pepperoni and half like, meatball, or something. The one you liked last time.”

“You’re the best, oh my God,” Phil says, when the smell of melting cheese hits his nose as Dan sets the pizzas down on the coffee table and flips open one of the boxes.

“Skipped breakfast again, right?” Dan says, mid-bite of pizza, settling down on the sofa, next to where Phil had been sitting all of five minutes ago.

Sitting down next to him, Phil takes a slice of pizza.

“Mm,” He says, with his mouth full, and then quickly covers his mouth and tries to turn away so Dan doesn't see him looking gross as he chews. “Mm, yeah, I, er. I've been trying to write that stupid advert.” He nods in the direction of his laptop, abandoned on the coffee table.

“Can I have a look?” Dan asks.

Phil just nods vaguely, trying to discreetly chew again. Dan abandons his slice in the pizza box and leans forwards to grab the laptop.

He's quiet for a moment, reading it through. Phil's eyes catch helplessly on the movement of Dan's fingers on the keyboard. Dan's still cagey about details about himself that stretch beyond TV shows and music, but one time he let slip that he used to play the piano, and ever since Phil hasn't been able to get the image out of his head.

It always involves candles, somehow, because apparently Phil's imagination doesn’t do anything by halves. The kind of glossy black piano that'd reflect the light. He spends too long thinking about how the candles would flicker, bathing Dan in gold, making him look like he's lit up from the inside.

“Are you shitting me?” Dan says.

“Sorry?”

“You're advertising for vamps? Like, actually advertising?”

“No,” Phil protests. “I just, like...I wanna be inclusive, you know? They need somewhere to live too.”

Dan looks at him for a second, frown softening a little.

“Well, yeah,” He says. Then he coughs, awkwardly, turning back to the laptop. “But, like. You don't want to actively _encourage_ the red class ones. That's how you end up being found as corned beef.”

Phil pulls a face and says, “Can we not talk about me turning into corned beef while there's pizza?” He reaches for a slice and adds, “Anyway, it’s not like it’s so easy to tell who’s a vamp and who’s not. Like, not unless they mention it. I’d rather be fair and leave it open for everyone than – I dunno, make people feel like they have to _lie_.”

“Hmm,” Dan says. “Can I-?”

He makes this little twirly gesture at the laptop, and Phil just nods.

“It can't be any worse than what I wrote,” He says, over the sound of Dan's suddenly furious typing, hands flying over the keys.

“Nope,” Dan says. “Right, there you go. I've taken out _vampires welcome_ , because that was asking for it – but then I put -”

Phil leans forwards to have a look, pressed awkwardly up against Dan for the second it takes him to read.

“ _If undead, yellow and blue classifications preferable. Be aware that the current occupant has Hunting Certification up to Level 12_ ,” Phil reads. He looks at Dan. “How did you remember that?”

“What, you think I'd forget your trunks of deadly weapons?” Dan says, grinning at him. “That's right, isn't it? Level 12?”

“Yeah,” Phil says. He remembers getting his level twelve certificate – funny that they send you a nice decorative card proclaiming that you're a trained killer. Funny that the Hunting Certification even exists still, encouraging parents to teach their kids to aim for the heart and the neck and the brain.

“...scare off anyone with forged papers, don't you think?” Dan's saying. “Like, if it was me, hypothetically, I'm not gonna try and move in and then mess with you. Even if you look...” He falters.

“What?” Phil says. Dan's half-smiling, avoiding Phil's eye. “Even if I look what?”

“Like,” Dan hesitates, licking his bottom lip, and Phil's heart squeezes tight in his chest for all of half a second. “Well, you don't look like a trained killer, put it that way.”

“Yeah, well,” Phil says. “Appearances are deceptive. I could totally mess you up.”

“ _Mess me up_?” Dan repeats, laughing. “Oh my God, don't say that if you _do_ get a vamp applicant, for the love of God.”

“I was kidding!” Phil says, but he's laughing too. “I can be threatening, shut up. Anyway, it's not like you're gonna scare off any vamps yourself.”

“You don't think so?” Dan says. “I feel like the whole black on black thing is kind of intimidating.”

Phil doesn't know how to tell Dan that he's more likely to make someone want to look twice when he walks by than he is to make them scared for their life.

Instead, he says, “Yeah, if they mistake you for one of them, maybe. But it'd have to be a dark night.”

“I'd blend in,” Dan says. “Like a chameleon.”

“Nah,” Phil says. “I mean. I don’t really see you blending in anywhere.”

“Right,” Dan says, laughing. “Because I’m just that ugly, thanks, Phil.”

“No,” Phil says, pushing him in the arm. “The opposite, really.”

They just sit and look at each other for what feels like the longest moment before Dan coughs and says, “Well, if that ad doesn’t get you a flatmate, then nothing will.”

“Thanks,” Phil says awkwardly, in a would-be calm voice, like his face isn’t tomato red right now.

“And I’ll help you decide, if you want,” Dan says. “Like, which flatmate you want.” He stops, mouth falling open, and hits Phil in the arm excitedly. “Oh God, you could have interviews!”

“Dan-“

“Yeah, that’d be perfect! You could weed out all the weirdos that way.”

“I’m not gonna do that,” Phil says obstinately.

“Not even for safety reasons?”

“No,” Phil says. But Dan’s leaning in close, eyes wide, pulling some stupid beguiling face and fluttering his eyelashes. “No, I’m not doing it, stop _looking_ like that-“

-

“I can't believe you talked me into this,” Phil says uncomfortably, when Dan brings two coffees back to the café table they’ve commandeered for the afternoon. “I feel like Alan Sugar.”

  
“Interviews stop murderers showing up,” Dan says, knowledgably, spooning sugar into his coffee. Phil watches him get a few granules on his hand and lick them off, absent-mindedly.

  
“But,” Phil protests for what feels like the millionth time, eyes catching on the glint of moisture on Dan’s thumb. “What if nobody shows up? Like, who interviews for a flatmate?”

  
“People who don’t wanna be murdered,” Dan says, giving Phil this look like he’s stupid. “Who’s said they’re alright with this, by the way?”

  
“Erm,” Phil unlocks his phone and finds the list. “Maybe three people. A girl called Ellie and – hey!”

  
“Have you looked them up on Facebook yet?” Dan says, scrolling through Phil’s phone. Phil just lets him, some weird part of him liking that Dan feels like he can do that – just take Phil’s phone like that. Like they share things that way, like really old friends.

  
“Dan.”

  
“Murderers, Phil,” Dan reminds him. Then Phil snatches his phone back, rolling his eyes a little.

  
_If you’re so worried about a murderer moving in with me_ , why don’t you be my flatmate, he thinks but doesn’t say. Part of him’s hoping that if he lets Dan go through all of this people searching with him that in the end he’ll just offer to live with Phil out of exasperation.

  
Not that - not like _that_. Phil’s – whatever it is he thinks or feels about Dan has nothing to do with it, he doesn’t want to _trap_ Dan in a flat with him, or anything, he just – he likes spending time with him. And Dan’s always at his flat now, always walking him to work and walking him home at four in the morning, always sitting slouched on the side of the sofa that Phil now thinks of as his, always insisting on trailing around Tesco with Phil at stupid times, loading up the trolley with snacks and then helping him pack it all away again back at home.

  
Essentially they’re flatmates already, Phil thinks. The only thing is is that Dan always ends up leaving, Phil insisting on walking him to the end of the street to catch the bus on his days off. At least it’s warmer now – they’re caught in the tail end of a warm spring that looks set to become a hot summer, and everything’s green and leafy and a little dusty further into town. Phil’s just happy that he doesn’t have to wear a jacket constantly anymore.

  
Dan still bundles up though – still wears his same old black coat, buttoned all the way up. In Phil’s flat he takes it off. Phil feels guilty for the thrill it gives him, the stupid creepy happiness he gets from watching Dan sigh and ask Phil if he wants a coffee, throwing his coat over the back of the sofa like he belongs there. Like he belongs with Phil.

  
Phil’s favourite pastime these days is to torture himself with thoughts like that. He doesn’t quite know when it started – doesn’t quite know if _started_ is the right way to put it, because nothing _started_ , not really. He just started to notice all the small things about Dan, the same way he always has, and then – then he started to look for them, wait for the way he taps his fingers against his mouth when he’s deep in thought, the way he scrubs a hand through his hair when he’s agitated only to quickly flatten it down again when his fringe gets messed up, the way his eyes light up when he smiles.

  
Even now Phil’s doing it. This whole interviewing flatmates thing is just an exercise in Phil paying too much attention to how much Dan cares (how worried he seems about Phil living with a random person) and then wishing he hadn’t.

  
Phil could spend the rest of his life quite happily overanalysing everything, and then beating himself up afterwards for doing it in the first place. Like he said, it’s become a favourite pastime of his.

  
Except then the interviewing starts, and Dan starts being so obstinate that it drives nearly all of Phil’s embarrassing, vaguely domestic fantasies right out of his mind.

  
-

  
The first person who shows up is a girl called Ellie. Ellie has glasses and a tattoo on her arm, and she seems really friendly.

  
“I just need someone to help me with bills,” Phil explains to her after they’ve been sat together for about fifteen minutes, exchanging small talk. “The rent’s next to nothing, really-“

  
“Yeah, I noticed that!” Ellie says, tucking her hair behind her ear, nervously, eyes flickering from Phil to Dan, who’s sitting curiously still next to Phil.

  
“So I suppose I’ll let you know about it?” He says, lamely, not sure how to finish this sort of thing. “Um. Yeah. It was nice to meet you.”

  
He waits until the café door dings as she opens it and leaves before he turns to Dan, who was strangely quiet throughout the whole thing.

  
“Any thoughts?” He says, then laughs at himself. “God, this really is like _The Apprentice_.”

  
Dan grins and says, “Eh, I dunno.”

  
“Eh,” Phil says, repeating the noise exactly the same way Dan had said it. “What does that mean? She seemed nice.”

  
“Oh, yeah,” Dan says. “But didn’t you see…?” He gestures vaguely at his neck. Phil frowns and shakes his head. “She had that glittery stuff on that vamp groupies wear.”

“Oh,” Phil says. “Well, that’s not a crime. Some people just wear that stuff. Everyone on Instagram was wearing it a few months ago, it’s just a _thing_.”

  
“Yeah, but,” Dan pulls a face. “It’s a bit coincidental, isn’t it? She wants a flat that’s right by a blue zone and she’s wearing something that attracts vamps?”

  
“I mean,” Phil says, trying to be fair, even though he thinks it’s probably more than just a coincidence too. “Even if she does have a thing for vamps, that’s not necessarily, like, a bad thing.”

  
“No,” Dan agrees. “Til she’s bringing them home every night from the blue zone and then your flat becomes an illegal nest.”

  
“Which probably won't even happen,” Phil says. Dan gives him a look. “Ok, you’re right, maybe not her. Maybe. But if nobody else shows up then.” He shrugs. “She was nice enough.”

  
Luckily, four other people show up as promised. Dan manages to find fault with every single one of them.

  
There’s a round-shouldered guy called Jason who has actual arm muscles and seems overly interested on whether Phil keeps weapons in the flat. That in itself is a little worrying – the last thing Phil wants is a hunter-obsessed flatmate who’s gonna ask him endless questions about fighting and guns. What makes him a little unsure of Jason’s actual motives is how many innuendos he keeps coming out with. He and Dan start out the chat completely straight-faced, but by the time Jason’s saying stuff like _I'm not fussy about weapon_ size _, to be honest, it's the girth_ , Dan actually chokes on a mouthful of coffee and Phil has to spend a few minutes slapping him on the back and holding in laughter so hard his chest hurts.

  
“Ok so either he was really into weaponry or he was really into _you_ , I’m not sure,” Dan says, wiping tears of mirth from his eyes after Jason’s gone. “Jesus Christ.”

  
“Maybe not him,” Phil says, pulling a face that hurts after laughing so much.

  
The next person who comes in, Hannah, is a really nice woman in a really nice purple cardigan. She compliments Phil’s shirt and offers to buy him and Dan coffee refills, and awkwardly hands Phil a CV, laughing a little and saying she’d brought it just in case.

  
“Hmm,” Dan says when she’s gone.

  
“What does that mean?” Phil wants to know. “She was nice! She didn’t make a single dick joke, and no glittery neck. That’s, like, two pluses.”

  
“She was too nice,” Dan says, pulling a face. “You know like when people just give you that vibe?”

  
Phil completely understands that, but how Dan can have got that vibe from Hannah after twenty minutes in her company is beyond him. Especially when she just seemed like a genuinely nice – if slightly nervous – person.

  
He thinks that maybe it was just Hannah – that Dan really did have misgivings about her – til he has misgivings about the next two people too. He pronounces David (army jacket and very quiet voice) “suspiciously quiet” and “shifty looking”, which Phil thinks isn’t fair at all.

  
“You can’t just say that about someone,” He says, getting more and more irritated.

  
“You asked me to come and give you my opinions, that’s my opinion,” Dan says, airily, which makes Phil feel even more annoyed.

  
“Right,” He says, looking down at his piece of paper and stubbornly circling David’s name. “Well, I liked him, so.”

  
“That’s fine,” Dan says. “Like – really, if you wanna wake up to someone taking clippings of your nose hair, that’s totally fine, Phil-“

  
“Oh, now you’re being _really_ unfair-“

  
“You asked me for my opinions!”

  
“Yeah, not, like, slanderous remarks!”

  
“Er, sorry,” A timid voice says. It belongs to someone with very dark hair and fidgety, nervous hands. “Are you Phil? Is this the – the flat thing?”

  
“Yeah, that’s me,” Phil says, weakly, embarrassed.

  
It turns out their name is Lara and they’re a student at the university. They seem nice enough, if a little quiet – Phil’s starting to wonder if something about his advert just appealed to the more introverted person.

  
“A student?” Dan says after Lara leaves fifteen minutes later. “That’s almost worse than a vamp. The parties are, for sure.”

  
“Oh now you’re just taking the piss,” Phil says, rolling his eyes.

  
“I’m just _saying_ -“

  
“Yeah, yeah, it’s your opinion,” Phil says, using air quotes. Dan gives him an incredulous look, which normally would be his cue to laugh or make a joke, but he’s not in the mood. “Ok, ok. There are two options for what’s going on here.”

  
“Right, ok. And?”

  
“And,” Phil says, trying not to falter because this is the stupidest argument in the history of arguments, but Dan’s been sabotaging him all day and Phil needs to know _why_. “Either you think I can’t take care of myself living with a stranger, which – which is, like, obviously coming from a place of concern, but, like, I can definitely hold my own against – against well, _anyone_. That’s where the whole hunting training thing comes in handy.”

  
“Alright,” Dan says, sounding a little more reasonable even though his arms are still folded like that, like Phil’s mum when she’s particularly unimpressed. “And the other option?”

  
“The other option,” Phil says. “Is that you don’t want anyone to live with me. Which I’d understand if it was because _you_ wanted to live with me, but you don’t, do you?”

Dan doesn’t say anything, but he ducks his head, unfolding his arms.

  
“Right, yeah,” Phil says, his heart sinking. “Got it in one. So, like. I really can’t afford to live by myself, not with bills. And – and you clearly won’t even _consider_ living with me-“

  
“It’s not like that-“

  
“So,” Phil says, raising his voice a little. “You just have to let me find someone, alright? And –“ He doesn’t even know what to say, or where he’s going with this. He feels stupid and a little sick for making a scene like this, for forcing Dan to admit what he’d been afraid was true, that he didn’t find Phil tolerable enough to live with. “Look, I’ll talk to you later.”

  
It takes him way too long to grab his bag from under the table and stuff his stupid notebook in his pocket so he can leave the café, and he feels like shit the moment the door closes behind him.

  
Rather than his irritation dissipating, the more he walks the more it occurs to him that he really _should_ be annoyed, because what’s Dan doing? What, Phil’s not allowed to live with anyone? What’s that about? Why offer to help Phil out if it was just to mess up his attempts to finally get a flatmate?

  
It doesn’t take him that long to get home, and he’s barely thrown his keys on the table in the hall and thrown himself on the sofa when his buzzer goes.

  
He lies there for a moment, considering ignoring it. But it can only be Dan, because nobody else ever visits him. So after about a minute of lying there, he gets up and goes over to answer the phone.

  
“I’m sorry,” Dan says, as soon as he picks up. “Look, I called Lara and they said to get you to call them back with the details if you want them to move in, and I tried to call the quiet guy but he wasn’t picking up, and –“ A sigh. “Can I come up?”

  
Phil just buzzes him in. He appears at the door almost instantly and strides right past Phil, pacing agitatedly in the space between Phil’s couch and his coffee table.

  
“I don’t have friends,” Dan blurts out, in a rush. The pained expression that follows is one that Phil recognises as Dan’s frustration at himself. “Like, I mean, obviously I have you, and – and Di’d probably be able to pick me out of a line up, and – and that’s it.”

  
He sounds so matter-of-fact when he says that, so lonely, that any remnants of ill feeling dissolve just like that. Maybe they were gone the moment Dan walked in the door – whenever he’s agitated it’s like Phil feels it himself, like there’s something not right somewhere deep inside and he wants it to go away.

  
“Dan,” Phil says. “You’re not-“

  
“No, no, it’s ok,” Dan says, still walking back and forth, scrubbing a hand through his hair. “I had friends once, I dunno. Back home. But I’ve moved around a lot and I just stopped talking to people ‘cause it felt safer, and.” He stops and makes a frustrated noise. “I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m not used to people being my friend anymore, and – and since you’re literally the only one I’ve got…I’m a really jealous person. And it’s shitty and I’m – I’m sorry I was acting so weird back there, but it’s like I got it into my head that if you got a flatmate then you wouldn’t wanna know me anymore-“

  
“Dan-”

  
“And – and I don’t really have anyone else.” Dan shrugs. “And that’s – that’s fine, by the way, like – that’s my problem, not yours, and I shouldn’t have been such a dick, and I’m really sorry.”

  
He stands there after that, just sort of awkwardly moving from one foot to the other in the middle of the room, and Phil kind of just wants to go over there and hug him. Except they haven’t hugged since that awful night at the library when Violet got taken away, and Dan seems to shrink away sometimes when Phil gets close to touching him, so Phil just always assumes he isn’t someone who likes physical contact.

  
“I don’t have many friends either,” He admits, clenching his hands into fists behind his back like that’ll alleviate his desire to just go over there and hold Dan tightly ‘til he stops looking so worried. “I mean, like. I’m the same as you, I’ve moved around and – and basically everyone I knew is back home. So.” He shrugs, thinking guiltily of Louise. “That’s – I understand not having a lot of people. But – you’ll have me no matter what.”

  
As soon as the words leave his mouth he feels himself flushing, especially when Dan’s gaze skitters away like he’s embarrassed to make eye contact.

  
“I mean,” Phil says, hurriedly, coughing. “Like, even if I get a flatmate. _When_ I get a flatmate. You’ll still be –“ And he feels like his throat is stuck full of all the things that Dan is, that Dan’s been to him, that he couldn’t ever get any of them out. “You’ll still be my friend.”

  
Dan actually looks at him then, and smiles, exhaling through his nose.

  
“I’m such an idiot,” He says, rolling his eyes.

  
“You’re not,” Phil says, automatically. “Besides, like – I don’t think I really did want to live with any of them, anyway.”

  
Dan just smiles again for a moment, then it fades a little.

  
“You know it’s not that I don’t want to live with you, right?” He says, anxious furrow to his brow back again like it never went away. “I’m just – I’m best off staying where I am for now, that’s all. It’s – I can’t explain, it’s a mess, and –“

  
“If you told me you’d have to kill me.”

  
“Something like that,” Dan says, but he’s not smiling. “I promise though, it’s nothing to do with you. Like, living with you would be – it’d be perfect, I just…” He trails off, shaking his head.

  
“It’s ok,” Phil says, warmly, stupidly charmed by _it'd be perfect_. “I shouldn’t have said anything about that, I’m sorry.”

  
“You’ve got nothing to apologize for, it’s _me_ who needs to apologize,” Dan says. “I’m gonna find you the best flatmate, honestly. No more jealous bullshit.”

  
Phil rolls his eyes fondly and offers Dan a cup of coffee, valiantly ignoring the way his stupid heart flutters at the thought of Dan being jealous like that – jealous of other people spending time with him.

  
_That’s a reach even for you_ , he tells himself as he’s spooning coffee and sugar into mugs. _He literally said it’s_ friend _jealousy, he’s jealous of other people being your friend, that doesn’t mean anything_ …

  
That doesn’t stop the soft, warm feeling that seems to spread throughout his entire body for the rest of the afternoon, sitting on the sofa next to Dan and watching him hunt through people’s personal ads online, looking for people who need flats. His concerned helpfulness is so endearing it sort of hurts.

  
_Because they’re_ friends, Phil thinks, determinedly ignoring how much it feels like a lie.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Believe me, nobody is more surprised than me that this is done on time. But here it is! Chapter two! Check out the updated warnings, we got some blood and violence up in this (it was only a matter of time amirite)
> 
> Thank you so so much to everyone who liked and commented on chapter one <3 I know I'm behind replying to comments rn but it means so much to me receiving them, and when people leave kudos??? I am alive, thank you all so so much, you're wonderful <3 <3

Phil finishes early on Thursdays at the library.

Rather than walking home in the pinkish light of daybreak like every other day, he ends up heading back when it’s still dark out, and a shout and a laugh echoing from a few streets away is enough to have him patting his trouser pocket, where his switchblade’s stowed, a comforting weight against his leg.

Ever since that night when he’d held a stranger’s hand as he was dying, he carries a knife to and from work nearly always. He should feel safer that way –safer than that, even, considering Dan’s always by his side anyway, and Phil knows he has weapons stowed away in his coat, too.

Even so, that Thursday morning journey home from work has set him on edge ever since that night when Violet got taken away. He foolishly thinks he’s managed to hide this fact from Dan – that Dan won’t have noticed the way he twitches a little at the sounds of car doors slamming, or the way he doesn’t relax until he’s literally on his own doorstep, doorkey in his trembling fingers.

But Dan clearly notices more than he lets on, because on this particular Thursday he gives Phil this look as they’re slipping out of the library.

It’s a soft look, a fond look. Phil feels like he could drown in the warmth of Dan’s eyes.

“Let’s get breakfast,” He says.

Phil laughs, surprised.

“It’s three am.”

“Exactly,” Dan says, grinning at him. “Morning means breakfast time. I bet the café does pancakes.”

“Dan,” Phil protests, then stops, unable to think of anything to actually complain about. Yeah, he’ll get less sleep if they go and get breakfast, but it’ll only be the same amount of sleep he’d get on a normal night, considering this was a half day.

Not to mention the fact that Dan’s looking at him like that, his hair ruffled by the slight late-night chill. Phil bets it’s as soft as it looks, his hair.

Clenching his hands into fists at his sides, he says, “Ok then, fine, pancakes.”

Dan laughs, nudging him in the arm.

“I love how you say it like it’s such a torture,” He says, grinning. “Come on.”

It’s entirely possible that if they hadn’t gone for pancakes, everything would’ve been fine. Phil probably would’ve got home without incident, and spent the usual hour in bed awake, staring at the ceiling, trying to sleep with his head full of Dan.

But they don’t. They go and get pancakes – less of the American-style feast Phil was thinking of, and more like crepes, with tons of golden syrup. Him and Dan debate the merits of sugar vs lemon juice (“Who actually puts _lemon_ on a _pancake_?” Dan says at one point, saying the word lemon with such venom that Phil snorts into his coffee with amusement because he makes it sound like a lemon burst into his house one day and tried to kill him) and Phil pretends not to notice when Dan chases the remnants of his golden syrup around his own plate with his finger.

He stares hard at the surface of his own milky coffee rather than anywhere in the vicinity of Dan’s mouth.

“I think I could literally drink it,” Dan says, wiping his hand on a napkin.

“Yeah, well,” Phil says, feeling warm. “I think I’ll just stick with coffee.” And he takes a giant gulp in an attempt to feel less self-conscious.

By the time they’ve finished and stacked their plates neatly in the middle of the table, Phil feels less fearful and more contented, zipping up his light jacket against the early morning breeze and laughing when Dan does a stupid stumbling walk, clutching his stomach and groaning theatrically.

“Death by pancake,” He says, and Phil rolls his eyes fondly. He feels warm and happy and sleepy, the way he always does after he’s eaten. Just sitting down in the warmth of the café had been enough to remind him of how much he wants to sleep, and now the cold morning air and the inky blue sky above are making him feel disorientated and slow.

“I’m so ready for bed,” He says, when they start ambling off down the street. “Seriously, I might just set my alarm for five and then sleep in my uniform, I can’t be bothered with tomorrow.”

“I’ll bring you coffee, don’t worry,” Dan promises, smiling at him. Phil feels like he could float above the pavement then, tips of his toes skimming the ground.

He hits the ground with a thud a few streets later. They’re just walking along, talking quietly and laughing softly, arms touching as they move side-by-side down the empty streets – dark fronts of houses and the occasional twitter of the first birds, waking up before the dawn.

There’s the sound of a whistle up ahead, and they stop. It sounds like someone trying to call a dog close, and they look at each other. It doesn’t even occur to Phil to be worried until Dan reaches inside his coat and he knows that he’s reaching for his knife. By the time Phil’s following suit, scrabbling in his jacket pocket, there’s a vamp in the road ahead of them.

There’s a click and Dan’s knife is out and so’s Phil’s, blade flicked open, holding it the way his mum taught him, the tight grip that’d stop anyone from knocking it out of his hand.

The vamp’s a woman, her blue dress torn, stained dark with blood and dirt. She’s tilting her head this way and that, growling softly under her breath. Phil knows instantly that she’s enthralled – he can tell right away, something about the inhuman look on her face, the hunch of her shoulders and the terrifying noises that sound like they’re being ripped from her throat.

It's weird because Phil’s been so fearful of being attacked lately, but standing there and watching the vamp size the pair of them up, he feels a wave of calm wash over him, of certainty. He’s fought dozens of vamps before, more than that, and he has Dan by his side.

In fact, that’s his only real concern. To keep Dan safe.

“Get behind me,” He says, softly.

“In your dreams,” Dan replies, equally quiet.

Neither of them take their eyes off the vamp, who’s watching them, eyes darting between them. When she opens her mouth, it’s to reveal a set of impressively large teeth, glinting sharp and deadly in the yellow streetlight.

“She’s deciding which one of us’ll be easier to take out.”

“Or which one of us is gonna taste better,” Phil says, darkly.

He’s been in standoffs like this before with enthralled vamps. His mum always taught him that when they’re still and considering the situation they always have the upper hand, but as soon as they attack they get sloppy, clumsy with their desire to feed, and that’s when they’re at their most vulnerable. He’s impressed that Dan clearly has enough experience in vamp fights to know that it’s better to wait until she makes the first move.

The stillness of the three of them stretches on for an indeterminate time. Phil starts to worry that a passer-by will wander along and the vamp will go for them instead – he finds himself just willing her to do _something_ , a plan already formulated in the back of his head. He’s gonna shove Dan out of the way and try and subdue the vamp somehow and get her to the nearest undead response centre.

The enthralled vamp hisses, mouth stretched into a terrifying parody of a smile. Phil’s heart is beating so fast, and he’s just thinking that she can probably hear it, that she’s probably gonna attack him, when she looks right at him and runs.

It’s easy to sidestep her attack and swing his free hand at her face, fist connecting with a hard cheekbone. One of her hands finds his arm, grabbing and holding tight, clawlike fingernails slashing through his jacket sleeve and slicing into his arm. He winces but punches her again, her razor-sharp teeth snapping uncomfortably close to his face. Dan makes a weird, angry noise and pulls her away from Phil, somehow managing to shove her backwards with enough force that she stumbles and nearly falls.

Dan stands there in front of her, standing oddly still, face like thunder. She’s tilting her head, apparently confused. Not that that’s enough to distract her for long, because she's looking at Phil again, slow and considering – his forearm’s bleeding where her fingernails cut him, and he guesses the smell of blood is what’s attracting her attention. He presses down hard on the scratches with his hand, letting out a tiny noise of pain, ‘til he can feel wetness on his palm.

Backing away, he holds his bloody hand out for her to see. If he can just draw her away from Dan, he thinks, forcing down the panic ringing in the back of his brain, the worry that something could happen to Dan and it could be _his_ fault (Martyn sprawled out on the ground, trying to catch his breath, his palms bleeding – that unknown man, each breath wet and laboured, dying in the dark--).

“Come on,” He says, under his breath, not sure if she can even understand him in this state. “Come on, come and get it-“

With a snap of her teeth and a roar she dives for him, and it isn’t difficult for him to get hold of her arm and twist it – he feels something snap under his hands but there’s nothing he can do.

“Sorry, sorry,” He says, breathlessly, as he forces her down onto the ground with all of his strength and presses his knee into the small of her back, keeping her there. When he looks over at Dan, Dan’s staring at him like he has two heads. “Hey, come and hold her hands a sec?”

Dan’s still staring, and with a cold feeling deep in the pit of his stomach Phil realises that this is the first time Dan’s seen him in a fight before. In that half-second Phil envisions Dan just running off down the street, horrified by him, like Phil just peeled back a mask to reveal his true monstrous form underneath.

Except the moment passes, and Dan moves over and crouches next to him, holding the vamp’s arms still while she snarls and makes pitiful hissing noises. Phil reaches for his belt and starts to unfasten it as best he can with his fingers shaking as much as they are.

“Di carries around handcuffs,” He says, when Dan stares at him. He feels himself flushing, which is so stupid, so he looks back down at his belt instead. “I never saw the point, really.”

“I mean, why bother with handcuffs when belts are a thing, am I right?” Dan says, weakly, with a smile. The tight knot of worry that’d started to build in Phil’s stomach loosens a little. He manages to get his belt undone and tugs it out of his loops, then sets to work using it to restrain the vamp’s arms.

“You didn’t use your knife.” Phil looks at Dan. “Like, you had a knife and you didn’t use it.”

Dan doesn’t sound accusatory, or even afraid. He just sounds curious, and maybe a little worried.

“She’s enthralled, isn’t she,” Phil reminds him. “I – I don’t attack to kill if they’re enthralled.” _Not anymore_ , a nasty voice in the back of his head supplies. He swallows. “Come on. There’s a URC on Carlton Street, it’s only down there.”

-

The walk to the undead response centre is thankfully uneventful. Phil’s on alert the whole time, not just because the enthralled vamp isn’t willing to go without a fight, but because he’s pretty sure that the vamp who enthralled her will be close by somewhere. But if they are, he and Dan don’t see them, and they get to the centre just as the sky starts to lighten.

“I’m so sorry,” Phil says when he’s handing the vamp over to the team who meet him at the automatic doors of the centre. “I – I broke her arm in the struggle, she’s gonna be in a bit of pain, but other than that-“

“It’s fine, don’t worry about it,” One of the black-clad response team tells him. “Thanks for bringing her in.”

Phil watches the vamp struggle ‘til one of them hits her with a shot of tranquilliser to the back of the neck, after which she goes limp and still almost instantly. They quickly transfer her onto a gurney, strapping down her arms and legs, and wheel her back through the doors that lead away from the URT reception.

“I should,” Phil says, looking over at Dan. Dan’s pale and scared looking, and Phil wonders if he’s ever seen a vamp getting subdued like that. He guesses if someone hasn’t it could be a little scary.

Maybe despite his knife and his bravado, Dan just isn’t as fight-savvy as he always makes out he is. Phil thinks about how still he’d been during the fight. Could that’ve been fear? Or did he just think Phil could handle it himself?

“Are you ok to wait here for a sec?” Phil asks, gently. Dan nods. “I should leave some details with the, er.” He gestures over at the receptionist.

He gives his name and his hunting class ID number to them in case they need to contact him, and then him and Dan leave, walking out into the chilly sunrise.

They’re largely quiet on the walk back, Phil gripping the handle of his knife in his pocket. It’s only when they reach Phil’s flat and Phil unlocks the door and he and Dan are safely inside with the chain on that he lets out a breath he didn’t realise he was holding.

This is part of their morning routine now, sometimes – Dan just hanging out at his flat for a little while before he inevitably slips off home. Sometimes Phil falls asleep on the sofa, unable to stay awake for another second, and he wakes up hours later with a crick in his neck, snuggled down under his duvet, warm with the knowledge that Dan went and fetched it for him before he left.

Except today the atmosphere is less relaxed and sleepy and more tense, leftover adrenaline making Phil’s hands twitch. It’s only when he’s shrugging his jacket off that he winces – the sleeve is soaked dark with blood, the wet fabric clinging to the scratches on his arm.

“Fuck,” He hisses, managing to shrug his arm out of the sleeve, cringing at the way it feels when the fabric catches. “Sorry,” He adds, remembering Dan’s horror about blood. He’s just standing, staring at Phil’s arm with wide eyes, like he’s scared but can’t look away. “Sorry, I know you’re squeamish, I-“

Dan blinks and shakes his head, jaw tight like he’s clenching his teeth.

“You’ve got a first aid kit, right?”

“Yeah, but,” Phil hesitates. Dan looks strangely pale, like he’s about to throw up. “You don’t have to-“

Dan just moves forwards and takes hold of Phil’s arm. His hand’s cool, and Phil shudders. Dan scrutinises the scratches for a moment, standing close – Phil watches his throat when he swallows, nervously.

“They don’t look deep,” He says. “Where’s the kit?”

“Under the kitchen sink,” Phil says, feeling flustered when Dan just leads him there, hand gentle on his wrist. He gulps. Maybe it’s just because Dan never touches him – that Dan actively seems to avoid touching him, sometimes – that he’s so overwhelmed by this.

“Should probably disinfect them first,” Phil says, regrettably breaking away from Dan’s hand to crouch momentarily and pull the first aid kit out. “I’ve got some of that spray stuff-“

“I can do it,” Dan says. “It’s fine,” Phil says, breathing out a tiny laugh, trying to get Dan to laugh with him. “I know you don’t like stuff like this, you don’t have to - you’re –“

“It’s your right arm,” Dan reminds him, rummaging through the first aid box with one hand and holding Phil’s wrist again with the other. “So how are you meant to do it, unless you’re, like, ambidextrous - is this it?” He holds up the little spray bottle.

“Yeah,” Phil says. “There are some, like, wipes, or something-“

“Oh,” Dan says, “Oh, sorry.”

The two of them are quiet while Dan just holds Phil’s arm and cleans the dried blood, Phil wincing when he skims over the scratches. There are three of them, in perfect diagonal lines across his forearm, angry red against his skin.

“See,” Dan says, quietly, looking up from Phil’s arm, the white antibacterial wipe stained with red. “How’s this for squeamish?”

“Dan,” Phil says, soft and fond. “You didn’t have to do this just to prove a point.”

“I really did,” Dan says. He catches Phil’s eye and they hold it for a moment, Phil caught up in the length of Dan’s eyelashes every time he blinks. Dan looks away first, blinking rapidly, and Phil just knows his own face is flushed pink and he hates it. “Um. Spray next?”

Phil nods, not trusting his voice for a moment.

“That was, like,” Dan says. “I didn’t realise I’d never seen you fight before ‘til I was _seeing_ it. I dunno.”

Phil breathes out a nervous laugh, then winces when Dan sprays the first of his scratches.

“I mean, props to you for not, like, running in horror,” He says, trying to make his worry into a joke.

“Phil,” Dan says, like Phil’s being stupid. “It was, like…shit, it was like you were a different person, you know?”

Phil’s heart sinks. He’s heard similar things before – people he liked in uni, who he thought he had a chance with, suddenly distancing themselves after altercations with vamps on the way back to halls, friends suddenly treating him like he was a different person, Louise –

He swallows, hard.

“Yeah,” He says. “Everyone always says that.”

“It was fucking _awesome_ ,” Dan says. Phil stares at him, but he’s focused on examining the scratches again, turning Phil’s hand this way and that. Then he looks up, grinning, and Phil relaxes because that seems like a sincere smile. “It was like something off _Buffy_ -“

“Shut _up_ , oh my God,” Phil says, feeling himself flush in spite of himself.

“I’m serious!” Dan’s still smiling, eyes bright. “I take it all back, like, everything I said about you not looking like a hunter, it’s – I dunno, it’s great that you don’t ‘cause then when you bust out all your expert moves it’s even more impressive.”

“Oh my God,” Phil says, feeling weirdly embarrassed and avoiding Dan’s eye. Dan’s still holding his wrist, cold fingers warmed against Phil’s skin, and Phil looks down at the point of contact.

And this is a moment when he could just keep it to himself, he could just not say it, be as private and secretive as Dan about his past.

But he’s never been all that into being enigmatic, so he says, “Normally people, um. They don’t take it so well. Like, seeing me fight vamps.”

“Don’t see why,” Dan says, and he’s not letting go of Phil’s arm. If anything, his fingers are moving gently back and forth, absently stroking the sensitive skin on the inside of Phil’s wrist and making him shudder. “You’re good at it, you – I dunno. I was, like. Surprised, but not bad surprised.”

Phil doesn’t know what to say. Dan doesn’t seem like he’s joking, he sounds completely sincere. He’s never really been in this situation before.

“T-thanks,” He ends up saying, and instantly hates himself for stumbling over the word. He probably sounds like a desperate idiot - but Dan hasn’t let him go yet. “I mean, for not – not – I dunno.”

“Not what?” Dan says. “Not freaking out ‘cause you know how to defend yourself?” He rolls his eyes, irritated. “What do people expect, for you to, like, put up a privacy curtain while you’re trying to defend yourself so their delicate eyes don’t get offended?”

“I, I mean,” Phil says, trying to be fair. “I guess it’s scary, I dunno.”

Dan scoffs.

“It’s not _scary_ ,” He says. Then he pauses. “I mean, like, imminent death by vamp is scary, for sure, but you fighting? Nah.” He pauses, swallows with a dry click, eyes on the scratches on Phil’s arm. “If anything, it’s, like. Um. You should put, like, photos of you fighting on your Tinder, or something, I dunno.”

Phil makes a surprised noise.

“Right, yeah,” He says. “’Cause, like, that’s what people look for in a date. Someone kicking the shit out of a dead person, that’s – that’s, like, swipe right quick, everyone, or this guy might show up at your house and beat the shit out of you-“

“I’d swipe right,” Dan says.

Phil nearly chokes on his tongue.

“I – I mean,” Phil can see the exact moment that Dan regrets saying anything. “I don’t even have Tinder, but-“

“Me neither,” Phil admits. He feels hot and clumsy, and Dan’s still touching him, just kind of holding his arm, like he’s forgotten that his hands are there. “I’m, like – setting myself up for rejection isn’t really my thing, you know?”

He sounds terrible, like he’s fishing for compliments, but if Dan hears it that way he doesn’t say so.

“Anyone who’d reject you is just,” Dan’s gaze is soft, and Phil just finds himself looking at his eyes, at the set of his mouth. “Just –“

Then something about him changes, like an icy breeze just blew through the flat and dissipated the warmth between them. Dan looks down at his hands, holding onto Phil’s arm, and lets him go. He takes a step backwards so suddenly he bumps into the kitchen counter with a thud that makes the cups on Phil’s mug tree tinkle.

“Sorry,” He says, abruptly. “I, um-“

“It’s ok,” Phil says, confused. Dan seems almost fearful, avoiding Phil’s eye like a dog anticipating a beating. “Hey, Dan, it’s ok-“

“I’m,” Dan shakes his head, squeezing his eyes shut tight for a second. He’s pressing himself against the counter like he’s scared that Phil’s gonna touch him again, like he’s _terrified_. “I’ll see you tomorrow, ok?”

And he hurries out of the kitchen in so much haste that he clips his shoulder on the doorway with a painful thud. Not that that stops him – the front door’s swinging shut behind him by the time Phil’s rushed to the kitchen door to try and get him to stay and talk.

“Dan,” He says, softly, just as the front door shuts with a click.

-

_Sorry_

_I felt awkward and weird so I left but it wasn’t anything to do with u_

_I’m just not good with touching ppl and I haven’t in a while and I thought I was doing ok but I wasn’t_

_I’m really sorry_

_Pls don’t hate me_

Phil’s lying in bed at about twelve pm, after an unsatisfactory four hours of sleep. He’d got those texts from Dan about an hour after he’d rushed out of the flat like the place was on fire – an hour in which he’d paced around the living room, gnawing on his thumbnail, unable to settle, worried he’d upset Dan somehow and wondering how he could fix it.

When his phone had beeped with a text, and then kept beeping, the relief Phil had felt had been so great he’d sunk down onto the sofa like he couldn’t stand up anymore.

 _No need to worry_ , it’s fine, he’d texted back, so fast he’d made about five typos and autocorrect had changed worry to _wary_ ‘til he’d gone back to delete it. _I understand, it’s ok. and I could never hate u_

He’d hesitated over the heart emojis, not wanting to freak Dan out, but in the end he’d just gone for the regular red one, feeling like maybe that was the least pushy out of all of them.

Then he’d finally crawled into bed and lay there, his brain buzzing. He completely understood Dan not wanting to touch people, but he found himself worrying about why, and wishing he could help.

 _It’s none of your business_ , he told himself sternly at around half 7. _You don’t know what Dan’s been through, and it’s up to him if he ever wants to tell you or not_.

Which just leaves him with remembering Dan’s _I’d swipe right_ comments, and his eyes, and the way he’d looked, the way his hands had felt –

Phil sighs, now, and yawns so hard his eyes water. He reaches across to grab his glasses from his bedside table and reads through those texts again. Dan had replied about an hour ago with just a heart emoji, and the sight of it makes Phil gulp down a breath of air, pulse fluttering like he’s fourteen years old.

He forces himself out of bed, reluctantly acknowledging the fact that, as tired as he is, he’s not gonna be able to get back to sleep now. He slips into the kitchen, clicks the kettle on and sticks a mug down on the side with a clunk. It’s only when he yanks the fridge door open that he realises he’s out of milk – he’d meant to grab some from the little Tesco near the library on the way home and he’d completely forgotten.

He slams the fridge door shut like it’s the fridge that forgot to buy milk, then rests his head on the cold plastic for a moment, eyes closed. He feels dead on his feet, and the scratches on his arm are throbbing painfully the more he wakes up.

He considers just drinking his coffee black, but no milk means no cereal too, and he’d splashed out on an expensive new brand during his last shop, as some kind of reward for getting out of bed.

Groaning, he forces his eyes open and stumbles into the bathroom, phone in hand.

 _What are u up to_ , he sends to Dan while he’s cleaning his teeth, half in and half out of a potentially dirty shirt.

He hopes it comes across as a _hey, I haven’t forgotten what happened yesterday but I’m not gonna make a big deal out of discussing it in case you don’t want to_ sort of text, but he isn’t sure.

 _Contemplating existence_ , comes the reply when Phil’s giving his reflection one last once over in his living room mirror, patting his hoodie pocket to make sure his wallet’s there.

He laughs, soft and fond, halfway through typing _alright edgelord_ when Dan sends another text – a photo of an arcade slot machine.

 _She’s calling to me_ , the next text says.

Phil rolls his eyes, grinning hard. He’s leaning against the doorframe as he texts back _it’s a gateway before you know it you’ll wake up in a casino with no name_.

Dan doesn’t reply til he’s left the flat and he’s walking down the street, rolling his hoodie sleeves up because the afternoon’s a little warmer than he’d expected. Even then it’s just a bunch of crying laughing emojis, but Phil finds himself gripping his phone tight in his hand and smiling like Dan just sent him a bunch of flowers.

He notices a white van parked at the end of the street when he’s on his way to the shop, but he doesn’t think anything of it. It’s just a van, plenty of people have vans. It’s only when he’s bought milk (and fetched some sugar down off a high shelf for a little old lady) and he’s on his way home, swinging the bag a little, that the van catches his attention properly.

“Oh – fuck – no,” A voice says loudly, and the back door bursts open, a bunch of random items falling out and onto the ground. “No no no no-“

A guy hops out of the van, gathering up the things that’ve fallen – Phil spots a teddy bear, a silver camping kettle and a small canvas covered in splashes of bright colour in all of the chaos. He might’ve carried on walking if the kettle hadn’t rolled out into the road.

Phil watches the guy shoving item after item back into the back of the van, then slips back and around the front of it and into the deserted road to fetch the kettle.

“Hi,” He says, awkwardly looming over the poor guy who’s crouched by the roadside, a little red-faced.

“Hi,” The guy says, with what Phil can tell is automatic politeness. He spots the kettle and his face brightens. “Oh, thanks!”

“It was in the road.”

“Yeah, it does that,” The guy says, and throws it in the back of the van. It hits something else with an unpleasant sounding clunk and the guy sighs, closing his eyes for a second before he slams the van door shut. “It just throws itself open when it’s not locked, I swear. It’s possessed.”

“Ha,” Phil says politely, even though he knows approximately zero things about vans. “Um –“

“Oh, hey,” The guy says, digging in his pocket for a moment. He’s wearing a really nice jumper, Phil thinks, this shade of green that makes Phil feel particularly underdressed in one of his oldest t-shirts and an ugly hoodie. “I don’t suppose you know where 7a Greenfield Road is, do you?”

“Um,” Phil blinks at the guy, surprised. “Er, yeah, that’s – that’s my flat.”

“Oh,” The guy says, looking confused for a second. “Oh, so it’s your ad! You’re – you’re the hunter!”

“That’s,” Phil says, uncomfortably. “Er. I have certification, yeah.”

“That’s cool,” The guy says. “I’m PJ. I was interested in the flat, it’s so cool to run into you!”

They shake hands.

“I’m Phil,” Phil says. “Um. D’you wanna-? We could get coffee? And talk about the room, maybe? Me and – we’ve been kind of meeting people responding to the advert in this café-“

“Sounds great,” PJ says, and smiles.

-

It’s surreal, being back in the café when he was there a matter of hours ago. He experiences a hot flash of guilt when they walk down the street where Phil had broken the vamp woman’s arm. He wonders where she is now, and if she’s alright. He knows that there’s no way to break enthrallment yet – the only person who can bring a vamp back to themselves is the vamp who made them that way. At least, according to Dan.

Maybe she's just stuck in the response centre indefinitely, restrained and snarling, with no idea of who she is and no memory of a family who might be missing her.

“It seems nice ‘round here,” PJ says, blissfully unaware of Phil’s thoughts.

“It is,” Phil says, automatically, and then tells him about his night shifts at the library, and the park down the road that he hasn’t been to in months, until they arrive at the café.

“I mean, there are attacks,” Phil tells him, because he doesn’t want to lie to the poor guy. “Don’t get me wrong, like – um. A few months ago there was a bit of a spree, and living this close to a blue zone isn’t ideal, but –“

“But you must be alright with all that,” PJ says, eyes bright with enthusiasm. “With, like, being a hunter, and everything.”

“I don’t really do much hunting anymore,” Phil says, uneasily. He hopes PJ isn’t a hunting fanatic.

“Oh, no, of course not,” PJ says, quickly. “I just – I don’t know anything about that stuff, so. I dunno, it’s great that you do.” He laughs a little bit, nervously. “I mean, there are times when…it would’ve come in handy, I dunno.”

Phil frowns, wondering if it’d be prying if he asked what PJ means. He’s saved from saying anything when the girl who’s working in here today brings their drinks over, and when the smell of coffee hits Phil’s nose he makes an embarrassed, grateful noise, and drinks a scalding gulp right away.

“Sorry,” He says, shamefaced, when he makes eye contact with PJ across the table. “I, uh. Late night. Um. And coffee’s great.”

PJ just grins, laughing a little. It’s not a mean laugh, not at all – it’s kind, soft and happy. Phil feels his shoulders relax just a little bit at the sound, grinning himself.

“Honestly, I understand,” PJ says, with feeling, taking a sip of his own coffee. “I’m, like – I love cafes like this. Coffee’s always better if someone else makes it.”

“It is!” Phil says. Then he pauses, deciding he’s just gonna do it. “I’m sorry, it’s none of my business, but – what did you mean, it’d be helpful to know how to hunt?”

For a second he worries that that’s done it – PJ’s gonna lose all interest in the flat because Phil can’t help but pry, and he’s gonna get up and walk right out the door.

Except he just shrugs, apparently unperturbed by the question.

“I just, um. I dunno. I, um. We used to live in a town, me and my parents, er. When I was younger.” He folds his hands around his coffee cup like he’s using it to keep warm, staring off at nothing like he isn’t seeing Phil anymore but that old town, his old house from his childhood. “And then, um. It got marked down as an area that was gonna be a blue zone, so.” He blows his fringe off his forehead, smiles a little. “We moved to this village. And that was hard, ‘cause – ‘cause moving schools and all that, sort of…sucks when you’re fourteen, you know?”

Phil nods.

“Yeah,” PJ says. “Well, er. That was fine for a few years, um. ‘Til I was like. I dunno, I wanna say…I’d just finished uni, so, like, twenty, maybe? Twenty one? And, uh.” He swallows. “I’d been coming home in the holidays and everything was fine, like…I didn’t question anything, but. When I moved back after uni it was…Some vamps had taken over the village, basically.”

“Shit.”

PJ nods, lips tight.

“They do that sometimes, like. Blood farms, they’re really into it. Mainly in remote areas. And.” He shrugs. “They like it, I dunno, all the food in one place, and. They’d come over, every day at five. Five ‘til six, that was feeding time. And we lived like that for such a long time. Like, I wanted us to just go, but my parents were too scared, and…” He shrugs. “We tried to get out a few times but they policed everything, they…they cut phone lines and messed with internet signal and stuff, and…they somehow knew everything we were doing, it was…” He shook his head. “I was meant to move in with a friend and I had to tell her I didn’t want to anymore. Like, I didn’t know what else to do.” He shakes his head, looking haunted, then smiles, awkwardly. “So. Yeah, some hunting mojo would’ve been really useful back then.”

“Jesus,” Phil says, with feeling. He’s heard of blood farms before, but only in newspaper articles and whispers. “I’m – I’m so sorry, I-“

“It’s ok,” PJ says, taking a sip of coffee. “It was a while ago now.”

“So,” Phil doesn’t know how to phrase it without seeming intrusive. “How did you-?”

“Oh,” PJ says. “Oh, we set the whole place on fire.”

“Sorry?”

PJ grins.

“Yeah,” He says. “We all, like, banded together, secret meetings and shit…Bearing in mind it wasn’t that big of a village. Maybe, like, thirty houses, and everyone knew each other. We like, evacuated all the kids earlier in the day…We stole a coach,” He adds, laughing at the memory. “Made sure all the kids and older people were clear, then waited ‘til feeding time.” He drinks some of his coffee. “Doused everything in accelerant and then got the hell out of there.”

“But,” Phil says, amazed. “Everyone’s houses-“

“Insurance,” PJ says, with a shrug. “Once all the vamps were dead we could explain to the police and the local undead response teams what’d been going on – we had a ton of evidence, like…I mean, all of us were covered in bites, to start with.”

“Fuck,” Phil says, speechless. “And – and they all died, the vamps?”

PJ nods.

“Some people stayed behind and got some stragglers,” He says, mimicking someone cocking a rifle. “And then, er. Well, some people wanted to stay in the village but most people wanted to move on, so – so my parents moved to this safe house up north – one of those with a buzzer and, like, twelve locks, and – and I just went on the road, I guess you could say.”

“You didn’t go and live with your friend?”

PJ shakes his head.

“I never heard from her,” He says. “Um. I looked her up, and. I think she’s ok, she just –“ He swallows, and Phil feels bad for asking about it. He looks pained. “I guess she just forgot about me.”

“You should contact her,” Phil says, thinking of Dan and wondering if this girl is the same kind of friend. “Let her know about the blood farm-“

PJ just shakes his head.

“Sorry,” Phil says, guiltily. “I’m sorry, I-“

“No, no, it’s ok,” PJ says, and smiles again. Phil wonders if he always smiles like that, no matter what life throws at him. He imagines being able to smile like that himself after surviving a blood farm, and doesn’t know if he could. “It’s too late now, I. I dunno, it was years ago.”

Phil just nods, feeling incredibly bad for him.

“So you’ve been, like, travelling?” He asks, in an attempt to change the subject.

“Yeah,” PJ says. “I feel like it’s safer, I dunno. _Felt_ like it was safer. Like, moving from place to place…there’s a mattress in the back of my van,” He explains. “And I have, like, a camping stove and stuff. You’d be surprised the amount of money you can earn, like, doing odd jobs for people.”

“Really?”

“No,” PJ says, laughing. “It’s, like, twenty p for cleaning some old lady’s windows, you wouldn’t be surprised at all.”

Phil laughs.

“But, er. I saw your ad, and I thought – y’know, I’m getting too old to be, like, moving around like this all the time, and. I realised it was stupid to still let those vamps get to me. Like they still have some power over me. ‘Cause that’s all it was, me travelling around, I – I was just too shit scared to settle down somewhere and have it happen again, you know?”

“I understand,” Phil says, with feeling.

“And that’s where you come in,” PJ says, gesturing across the table. “Like. I mean, you’ve got to be the best person to live with, right? Nobody’s gonna mess with you.”

“I mean,” Phil says, guiltily, thinking of that vamp’s broken arm again. “Sometimes they try, I dunno.”

“But you have all that certification, so you’re fine,” PJ says. Then, after a moment’s pause, he adds, “Sorry. I don’t mean to, like, put a ton of pressure on you. It’s not like I want your spare room so you can be my bodyguard, or anything, I just – it’s more to make me _feel_ better, than anything, not like. Not like I expect anything from you.”

“No, no, it’s ok,” Phil says. When PJ reaches a hand up to push his hair out of his eyes, Phil spots the silvery dots of scars on his wrists – the unmistakeable sign of bite marks layered onto old bite marks, the sort of thing he’s only ever seen before on photos of people found in vamp nests after years being kept captive. “So. Um. When can you move in?”

-

It takes PJ precisely one trip up the stairs to move all of his essentials into the flat. Even so, by the time he’s in and he’s started stringing fairy lights around the door, it’s already five o’clock, and Phil has to excuse himself to change into his uniform. When he walks back down the hall to his room, he pauses in PJ’s open bedroom doorway to find him sitting on the bed, like he’s testing how firm it is.

“Hey,” PJ says when he sees him, smiling.

“Hey,” Phil says. “You can bring your mattress up if you want. If, um, it’s not comfortable-“

“It’s great!” PJ says. He bounces a little more, apparently delighted. “It’s an actual bed!”

Phil just grins, unable to stop himself. He’s about to say something about clearing a space in the fridge for him when the buzzer goes.

“Oh, gimme a sec,” He says. “This’ll probably be Dan, we normally, er – we walk to the library together, I’m gonna have to go soon.“

He hurries down the hall to his own room and pulls the door shut and locks it, the key dusty in his hand. He hasn’t had the need to use it since he moved in, and it’s not like he thinks PJ seems like a thief but he can’t know for sure. Then, slipping the key into his pocket, he hurries to the front door.

He presses the door button without even answering the phone. He’s been texting Dan about PJ all afternoon – nothing too much about his past, because that’s up to PJ to tell. All he really said was that _he lives in his van dan I had to let him move in_ and _he’s a really nice guy, I think you’ll like him_.

“Coffee,” is the first thing Dan says when he gets through the door. “As promised! I got Carla to put vanilla syrup in it for you so it's like a milkshake or something, I know you prefer instant-“

“Because it’s better,” Phil says, taking the coffee.

“Because you’re a heathen,” Dan says, in the exact same sing-song voice, making Phil laugh. PJ makes a noise in the other room that sounds like the strum of a ukulele, and Dan looks startled and lowers his voice. “Oh, is that him?”

Phil nods, drinking the coffee. It’s too sweet, not that he’d ever tell Dan that.

“Ah,” Dan suddenly looks a little awkward – even more so when PJ appears in the living room doorway. “Ah, er. Maybe I’ll wait for you downstairs?”

“Dan,” Phil says, quietly. He seems nervous, though, and Phil isn’t gonna purposely put Dan through anything that makes him sound like that. “Ok, I’ll be down in a sec.”

Dan smiles, then waves an awkward hand over at PJ, who says “Hi!” He’s barely halfway through the wave when Phil can see him start to regret even doing it, and he’s about to console him when he yanks the front door open and disappears without another word.

“He’s, um.” Phil turns to PJ. “He’s not good with new people.”

“I was gonna say,” PJ says, a little worried. “That wasn’t ‘cause of me, was it?”

“No, no-“

“’Cause, like,” PJ’s pulling on his cuffs, looking earnest. “I know I said all that stuff about, like, the blood farm, but – but I know all vamps aren’t like that, and –“

Phil feels like he’s been plunged underwater.

“Sorry, what?”

“And, like – I’ve met some really nice, like, vegan vamps, and, um. So he doesn’t have to avoid the flat just ‘cause I’m here.”

“Wait, wait,” Phil says, staring. He can hear the whoosh of his pulse in his ears. “Are you – you think Dan’s a vampire?”

PJ’s earnestness is quickly being replaced by concern.

“Oh shit, isn’t he out? Oh God, fuck, I’m so sorry, I – I’m really sorry, I thought you must’ve known, I-“

“Dan’s a vampire,” Phil says, faintly, everything suddenly making perfect sense.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SHE IS DONE. I'm so sorry this is late, I'm an idiot. HUGE THANKS to anyone who's commented so far (I'm gonna get back to replying to you all, I swear, each and every single one of you needs a chunk of love from me. And. Pretend that wasn't so creepy ok) and anyone who's left kudos and tbh anyone who's read it so far and thought "this isn't bad", I love all of you.
> 
> Shout outs as ever go to the wonderful palephantom for being my cheerleader at all times and the delightful leblonde who??? Is great??? Bless u guys <3 
> 
> (Eni my friend this fic is still for u)
> 
> ALSO if u spot any errors ME TOO BUDDY, I'll be back to fix those tomorrow. Right now I'm gonna sleep, I love u all

“I’m sorry,” PJ keeps saying. He’d steered Phil over to the sofa and taken his coffee off him, setting it down on the coffee table before hopping agitatedly from one foot to another on the hearthrug. “I – I didn’t know that you didn’t know, and I…”

Phil pushes a hand into his hair and presses his fingertips against his scalp, like he can force some intelligence into his brain if he pushes hard enough. He can barely believe that he’s been so stupid – for months and months, he’s been blind, turned the other way and refused to see what was staring him right in the face. He’d written Dan’s secretive behaviour off as part of his personality, as something that was none of Phil’s business.

He’d been so worried about losing Dan that he’d actually been a pretty shit friend, by all accounts.

“I’m an idiot.”

“No, no-“

“Vampire hunter, I’m – like, somewhere out there my mum’s disowning me and she doesn’t even know _why_.”

“Phil,” PJ says, looking alarmed. Phil just shakes his head piecing it all together in his mind. Dan’s reaction that day in the library, the girl covered in blood. Phil thought he was afraid, and maybe he was, but not in the way Phil had assumed. His cagey secretiveness about everything to do with his life. The way he’d disappear for days without explanation.

The black clothes. The – God, the scarf wrapped all around his face in the winter, the insistence on walking Phil home, his quiet self-assuredness that he could get around the city by himself without any sort of protection. The fact that he’d never mentioned having a job, or invited Phil back to his place.

_My flatmates are kind of unsociable_ , he’d said once. Phil could laugh, thinking about that now. He doesn’t doubt that Dan’s flatmates are unsociable – they’re probably the kind of unsociable that’d bite a chunk out of Phil’s throat and spit it out onto the kitchen floor.

“I’m sorry,” PJ says again, sounding as regretful as if he'd killed Dan in the first place. “I – The blood farm, it – when you’re used to vamps showing up every day, you – you can’t really get rid of the, like, feeling you get when they show up, I dunno. I guess you learned the opposite in hunting stuff, like, you have to get rid of that instinct of fear.”

PJ falters and Phil looks up at him, snapping out of his shock for a moment.

“Sorry?” He says. “Is that –“ He swallows hard, feeling himself grow hot with embarrassment. “Is that how you knew?”

PJ shrugs.

“It’s just a feeling,” He says, clearly uncomfortable. “I dunno. It’s, like, the back of my neck gets all weird, and, um. I wanna like, run.” He laughs, awkwardly. “Overexposure to vamps, I guess.”

“I guess,” Phil repeats, feeling guiltier than ever because of the look on PJ’s face. “I’m sorry.”

“What are you sorry for?” PJ says, his irrepressible smile back again, smaller this time. “It’s ok. _I’m_ sorry for blurting it out like that.”

Phil doesn’t know what to say. His mind is racing. His _heart’s_ racing, thinking it all through. He realises, like something cold slipping into his stomach, that they never actually talked about it. Phil just sort of assumed Dan was alive, and Dan didn’t correct him. He thinks about Dan’s beaten up mac, and all of the questions he’d ever wanted to ask but held back on, worried of frightening Dan away forever.

“He didn’t tell me,” He says, quietly.

PJ looks a little lost.

“Maybe he was scared to,” He says, hesitantly. “I – I guess it’s a difficult thing to tell. Especially when it comes to someone you – someone you’re close to.”

Phil gulps down a breath of air. He feels like the worst, most unobservant friend in the world. He feels like an idiot.

He feels like he just found out his best friend’s been dead this entire time, and he didn’t even notice enough to make sure they were ok with it all.

“I should – I should go,” He realises. “It’s – my shift starts soon, I should-“

“Phil-“

“It’s ok, I – don’t worry, you don’t have to be sorry,” He says to PJ, patting his pockets to make sure his phone is still there. “I’m – I’ll see you tomorrow, ok?”

He pounds down the stairs, feet echoing loudly in the empty stairwell, thinking. He has to confront Dan, he has to ask him why he never said anything, he has to-

“Jesus, do you wanna be late?” Dan says, when Phil pushes the outer door open. “I mean, as much as I’d like to see you and Di go head to head in a battle to the death, I – hey, what’s up?”

What’s up is that he’s seeing Dan with new eyes. He’s seeing the strange pallor his skin has, and how dark his eyes are.

He’s seeing Dan the vampire, rather than Dan the human.

“Nothing,” Phil says, after a moment’s silence that lasts too long. “Nothing, I’m – let’s go.”

-

When Phil stumbles into the living room at three o’clock the next afternoon, feeling like he got hit by a truck in his sleep, PJ’s sitting in the armchair on his phone.

“Hi,” He says, brightly.

Phil just makes a noise and rubs sleep out of his eyes.

“’M’gonna…coffee,” He says, vaguely, voice hoarse, then pads over to the kitchen.

He stands and watches the kettle boil like a zombie, blinking and swaying a little, and doesn’t move until it clicks off and he goes to get milk and sugar. It’s only when he’s sweetened the coffee (spilling sugar on the side like always) and taken his first sip, then another, that he realises he’d been rude.

“Sorry,” He says, reappearing in the kitchen doorway. “I, uh.” He gestures at the mug in his hand. “Coffee.”

PJ flaps a hand at him.

“You work nights,” He says. “’Course you’re not gonna, like, tap dance out of your room.”

Phil has a surreal moment of picturing himself doing exactly that, and snorts into his coffee. It’s only when PJ laughs that he realises he was probably picturing it too.

He usually only experiences that sort of synergy with Dan, and the fact that PJ gets it too makes him feel all warm and happy as he shuffles over to the sofa.

That is, until he sits down and the memories of the previous evening all come flooding back. The awkwardness and the endless cold realisations, and the look on Dan’s face sometimes like he knew something was wrong but couldn’t tell what it was.

“So,” PJ says, smile fading a little, and Phil already knows what he’s gonna say. “How did it-?”

“I didn’t tell him,” He says, heavily, setting his coffee down precariously on the arm of the sofa.

Dan hates it when he does that, he remembers, belatedly. He’s been known to go and fetch a coaster and put the coffee on the coffee table for Phil, huffing and muttering under his breath the whole time and making Phil laugh at how exasperated he is.

“Sorry?” PJ says.

“I couldn’t,” Phil says, feeling foolish. “I – I couldn’t do it, I went down there and all I could think was that he’d never told me, and – and maybe it wasn’t my business to know, and –“ He swallows. “I didn’t wanna, like, make him…” _Hate me_. “Run off, I dunno.”

He’d spent his entire shift worrying about it. And worrying, and worrying. It was only a strangely eventful night at the library that had stopped him from anxiously gnawing his entire thumb off. Two fights had broken out and Di had actually broken a chair in an altercation with one of the girls involved.

Phil thinks maybe Di’s the scariest person he knows. Her hands hadn’t shaken at all - not like his, trembling at the merest hint of something stressful or unexpected. There’d been something blank and calm about her face as she’d started telling the people causing trouble that they’d have to leave or she’d _make_ them leave, her eyes flashing dangerously.

“I mean, I’m legitimately in love with her,” Dan had said later, when the two of them were walking home, Phil a buzzing, anxious mess walking alongside him. ”Like, actually. She’d snap me in half like a twig but I feel like I’d be into it, you know?”

It’s not ‘til he was halfway through his sentence that Phil had started looking at him, surprise momentarily snapping him out of his train of thought, and by the time he’d realised that Dan was probably joking he’s already laughing.

“Your _face_ , oh my God,” Dan had said, leaning into Phil a little as he’d laughed.

And knowing that Dan was a vamp hadn’t changed that, not at all. He still mulled it over later, the way he’d been so close for a moment. He still feels uncomfortably warm remembering it now, even though it was something so small and insignificant.

He has all of the feelings he had this time last week. It’s just now Dan’s dead, and Phil’s too scared to tell him that he knows.

“God,” Phil groans, out loud. “Sorry,” He adds, when PJ looks at him. “It’s just – God, it’s such a _mess_.”

PJ sighs and bites his lip, looking thoughtful.

“I mean,” He says. “There has to be some way to let him know that you know. Without, like, upsetting him.”

“But he doesn’t want me to know,” Phil says, painfully aware of how pitiful and whiny he sounds. “So…maybe I should just act clueless until he wants to tell me, I dunno.”

PJ doesn’t say anything, but his face speaks volumes.

“You think that’s a bad idea,” Phil says.

“I didn’t say that.”

“No, but you thought it. And you’re right.” Phil rubs a hand over his eye, pressing in hard enough to see stars behind his eyelids.

PJ’s quiet for a moment while Phil drinks more coffee.

“I mean, the sooner you tell him that you know the sooner that, like…he won’t have to lie anymore, right? I mean…you don’t have a problem with him being a vamp, do you?”

“What?” Phil says. “No, of course not! I - I just…he didn’t want me to know, so I dunno how to tell him without it being like I’m violating his, like, _privacy_ , I dunno.”

PJ groans.

“I shouldn’t have said anything,” He says. “Why didn’t I just-“

“I should’ve noticed!” Phil says. “I’m – I’m a hunter and my best friend’s a vampire and he’s…he’s been a vamp for months and I didn’t even _notice_.”

“Don't beat yourself up about it,” PJ says. “They’re – they’re hard to spot, and you’d probably pass one a million times in the street and never know. I only noticed, ‘cause, well, you know.”

“I know,” Phil says. “It’s ok, PJ, I’m glad you told me.” He pauses, thinking, taking another gulp of coffee. “I think I’ve got an idea. Maybe. Would you mind, er, staying out for a bit later?” He feels his face reddening but it’s not like he’s asking to have the flat to himself for _that._  It’s to tell Dan that he knows he’s dead, it’s about as far from that as it’s possible to get. “I, um. He’s coming over ‘cause I’m off work, so. Maybe it’d be a good time to tell him.”

“Yeah,” PJ says, nodding. “Don’t worry, I can stay out for a bit. I was gonna get some shopping later anyway, at least this way I can kill two birds with one stone.”

“Thanks,” Phil says, gratefully, and gets up to make himself another coffee.

-

“Phil!” Bryony says when he calls.

“Bry, hey,” Phil says. He feels like his tongue’s about five times too big for his mouth with awkwardness, but if there’s anyone who could help him with how to approach Dan now that Phil knows he’s dead, it’s Bryony. She probably has a flyer that deals with that exact problem. “Um. Can I ask your advice on something?”

“Sounds ominous,” Bryony says. “But sure, go ahead.”

He explains to her, trying to avoid the sight of his reflection in the living room mirror. He has his keys clutched in his hand, ready to leave at a moment’s notice. Halfway through his explanation the sound of PJ playing something soft and soothing on the guitar drifts in from his room, like he’s trying to calm Phil down through music.

“Ah,” Bryony says, when he’s finished.

“Ah?” Phil repeats, sounding a little desperate.

“I mean, that’s. You really didn’t notice?”

“I really didn’t notice,” Phil says, patiently. “I just. Do you know anywhere that sells good blood subtitutes? Like, fancy ones? I.” He gulps. “I thought maybe if I got him something that showed I don’t care, then-“

“He might not drink substitutes,” Bryony says, voicing the thing Phil’s unsuccessfully been avoiding thinking about all day.

“I know,” He says, hoping his voice sounds even. “I – I know that. I’ll – I’ll tell him I don’t care if he doesn’t, I’ll. It’s just a gesture, I dunno.”

“It’s a good gesture,” Bryony says, in such a way that makes Phil sure he didn’t manage to hide his panic over the thought of Dan killing people as much as he’d hoped.

“Thanks,” Phil says.

Ten minutes later, he’s leaving the house, following directions on his phone to the shop Bryony had recommended. PJ had offered to come with him, but Phil had got it into his head that this was something he had to do alone.

He spends about twenty minutes getting himself hopelessly lost, and ends up going to text PJ to tell him he’d been right when he realises he doesn’t even have his number yet.

The only other person he has to text is Dan. He types, _picking up snacks for tonight_ , then sends it, laughing at himself.

Well, he hadn’t been lying.

-

The shop is crammed away down a side street that Phil’s never walked down before. It’s narrow and overlooked by tall buildings, and even though it’s not even five o’clock yet Phil finds the weight of his knife in his jeans pocket and gives it a squeeze, just making sure it’s still there.

It’s not what he’d expected at all. He’d expected it to look weird, gross, maybe a little creepy – but it’s just a funny little shop with a yellow sign and fairy lights blinking around the window display of little advertisements and what look like wine bottles.

It looks for all the world like a place where he might be able to buy organic vegetables or something. He pauses in the street, looks one way then the other, then snaps a photo.

The door dings as he pushes his way in. The air inside smells weirdly floral, and the floor seems to be made up entirely of creaky floorboards. It’s like an old wine cellar, the walls lined with bottles – like Ollivander’s, he thinks, stupidly, in _Harry Potter_ , except instead of wands it’s-

“Hi,” A voice says, cheerfully, making him jump suddenly in the thick silence.

“Oh – oh, sorry,” He says, turning on his heel and clutching his chest. It’s a kind looking woman in a green apron with a nametag that says _Kat_. “Um. Hi.”

“Hi,” She says again, mouth twitching with amusement. “Is there anything I can help you with?”

“I, um. I’m looking for blood substitutes. For a friend.” Then he stops, realising what a stupid thing that is to say in the middle of a shop devoted entirely to blood substitutes. “I, um. I just found out he’s a vamp, and –“

“So you want a special occasion bottle?” She says, understanding immediately. “We’ve got some over here.”

When she smiles, Phil notices her teeth with a start. Most vamps keep their fangs retracted in public, he knows (“For stealth,” Phil’s mum had always said. “To lull you into a false sense of security.” Phil had always privately thought it was probably to avoid getting into a fight with an overzealous hunter), but she clearly doesn’t have the same reservation.

“Sorry,” She says, noticing him noticing, and retracts her fangs. Phil’s seen vamps’ teeth lengthen in a fight before, but he’s never seen it happen the other way. It’s weird, like watching a video in rewind.

“No, no, it’s ok,” He says, flushing. “I – how does it feel, keeping them in like that? If, um. If you don't mind me asking.”

She pulls a face that says it all.

“Nah, I don't mind. And it hurts like a bitch,” She says, her teeth long and pointy again. “If you just wanna come over here, this is where we keep the good substitutes…”

Phil ends up buying one of the wine bottles of substitute (“It’s, like, a rhesus negative? That’s what I’ve heard people say anyway, I dunno,” Kat says) and a regular squishy blood bag (“It’s like a Capri Sun,” Phil says, making Kat laugh). He also grabs some coppery tasting chewing gum that _stops cravings dead!_ according to the packaging.

All he has to do then is go home and wait for Dan. By the time he gets back to the flat, PJ’s already out – his van’s gone from the curb outside.

_At tesco, good luck_ , says the pink post-it note stuck to the TV, with a little doodle of a smiling PJ. Phil smiles at it right before the uncomfortable fluttering in his stomach reminds him of what he’s about to do and he has to snatch the post it away and shove it deep into his pocket, like that’ll make him forget why he needs PJ’s luck in the first place.

While he’s waiting for Dan to show up, Phil paces around the entire length and breadth of the flat. He makes himself a coffee only to smash the cup on the floor and burn his arm because he’s so jittery, and it’s only when he’s cleaning up the coffee pool and fragments of his favourite mug that it occurs to him that caffeine is not his friend right now, so he gets a glass of water instead.

His teeth clank nervously against the glass when he tries to take a sip, so he ends up putting it back on the side and going back to pacing.

_You’re not gonna lose him_ , he keeps telling himself, even though he can’t believe it. _You’re not gonna lose him, you’re_ accepting _him, that’s not gonna frighten him away_.

He might not drink substitutes, Bryony had said. If he doesn’t, he might take Phil’s gesture as an attempt to tell him what to do, to control his diet – basically the opposite of the accepting gesture Phil wants it to be.

Just as he’s considering pouring all of the substitute down the sink, the door buzzer goes. Phil’s heart twists so hard in his chest he almost feels like he’s gonna have to call an ambulance.

“Ok so I was promised snacks,” Dan says as soon as Phil picks up the phone. “So I have high hopes, ok? I’m talking Pringles.”

Phil laughs, high pitched and a little wild sounding.

“I have Pringles,” He says. He’d nipped to the shop on the corner after he’d left the substitute place, just so he could get some snacks he could actually eat.

“You’re the best,” Dan says, warmly.

“Yeah,” Phil manages to say, and hits the door button before he can change his mind.

“So I’m thinking,” Dan says a moment later, pushing the door open and unzipping his jacket. “We should totally get pizza, ‘cause – as much as I love Pringles, like, I’m so in the mood for pizza. Do you ever get that mood, that – that –“ He stops, looking at Phil. Phil, who’s backed up against the arm of the couch, his heart beating so hard that it hurts. He thinks he’s gonna throw up. “Phil, what’s up?”

Phil shakes his head at first, not trusting his voice. He’s so scared to say what he’s been planning to say all afternoon – variations on _hey, I know you’re a vamp and I don’t care_. He’s so afraid that he’ll say it and Dan will take it the wrong way, that he’ll get upset or get angry or never want to see Phil again.

Belatedly, he realises that Dan can probably tell just how fast his heart’s beating – that he’s always known how fast Phil’s heart beats when he’s around. He can probably tell that Phil’s afraid just by like…smelling it or something, Phil doesn’t know.

“I’m fine,” He says, forcing himself to speak when Dan just looks more worried than ever. “I, um. I got you something.”

He pulls the squishy blood pouch from behind his back and just holds it out so Dan can see it. There’s all of half a second when Dan’s frowning, confused, and then realisation clearly hits him because his entire self changes, somehow. He looks pale, paler than he ever has, and his posture goes from his usual slouch to painfully upright. He stands very still, like a statue of himself.

Like he isn’t even human.

Phil’s fearful for a moment, but it’s not intimidating – he knows Dan won’t attack him. No, Dan’s clearly more terrified than Phil about this whole thing. He looks like a rabbit caught in headlights, about to be crushed under the wheel of a car. He looks like he’s about to cut and run.

Phil rushes over to him without even thinking, the pouch of fake blood falling out of his hand and hitting the floor with a weird wet noise, but he hardly notices. He grabs hold of Dan’s hand instinctively – anything to stop him looking so still and afraid – and ends up touching his wrist, his face, his neck, everywhere he can reach, murmuring stupid nonsense words of comfort.

“It’s fine, it’s fine,” He’s saying, sounding almost feverish. “I – I don’t care, it’s – it’s fine, I’m so sorry, I found out by accident but I don’t care, I really don’t – Dan, I’m just – I’m sorry I didn’t notice, I – I’m such an idiot, I – I thought if I bought that substitute it’d show that I don’t care, but – but if you don’t drink substitutes that’s ok too, I still don’t care, I just wanted you to-“

“Phil,” Dan says. It’s only when he talks that Phil realises how strange this would look if PJ were to walk in now – the two of them standing so close, and Phil touching Dan’s face, holding tight to his hand. The intimacy of the pose does nothing to lessen the roaring of his pulse in his ears.

Dan squeezes Phil’s fingers back, cold hand warming against Phil’s.

“Sorry,” Phil says, but he’s still stroking a little at the side of Dan’s face, feeling lost and helpless, like there’s something stuck in his throat. “Sorry.”

“Phil,” Dan says, again, quietly. He looks so sad, and his eyes are so beautiful – Phil can see more of his freckles this close, can feel the weird raspy softness of his skin under his fingertips. How often has he thought of being close to Dan like this? How often did he beat himself up over thinking about stuff like this, and now –

_You just dropped a bombshell on him, and he definitely doesn’t need sexual harassment adding into the mix_ , a nasty little voice in the back of Phil’s head reminds him. He drops Dan’s hand abruptly, taking a stumbling step backwards and clenching his hands into fists, skin tingling with weird aftershocks of having touched Dan’s cold skin.

“Sorry,” Phil says again, feeling himself flush.

“You said that already,” Dan says. He tries for a smile but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “It’s fine.” He shakes his head at himself, looking at the floor, and Phil realises he’s looking at the blood substitute, discarded on the carpet. “I. I was gonna tell you eventually.”

“It’s fine,” Phil says, quickly. “It’s – it’s your business, I’m sorry-“

“You don’t have to be sorry,” Dan insists, firm. Softening, he adds, “It’s honestly ok, I – I let it go on for too long with, like, lying to you. I was gonna tell you, I just.” He pauses, breaking eye contact. “I liked being alive. For. For a while. Like, you thinking I was…it let me pretend, and – and I liked pretending.” He shrugs. “It was nice to be a person again for a bit.”

Phil feels so much in that moment that his chest aches.

“You _are_ a person,” He says, taking a step closer again. “Of course you – being dead doesn’t stop you being a _person_ , Dan, you’ll always-“ But Dan’s shaking his head, his smile sad and disbelieving.

“It’s ok, you don’t have to-“

“I know I don’t have to,” Phil says. “I – you’re just Dan, ok? You’re just Dan.” He gets close enough to reach up to his lapel and taps the little button badge that’s still pinned to Dan’s jacket. _Dead people are still people._ "Remember?"

They look at each other for a moment, and Phil doesn’t know which of them reaches first but all he knows is that he ends up with his arms around Dan somehow, the two of them hugging each other tightly, so tightly that it sort of hurts. Phil wouldn’t let go for the world.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” Dan says, voice muffled.

“I’m sorry I didn’t notice,” Phil says, reluctantly pulling away to add, “I’m sorry, I, like, assumed. I shouldn’t have.”

“It’s ok,” Dan says. He’s quiet for a moment, his hands still touching Phil’s elbows, like he might pull him back in at any moment. The thought sends a shiver of warmth through Phil’s chest and he has to break eye contact for a moment. “So you really don’t mind. Like, you’re fine with this. With – with me.”

“Of course,” Phil says, with feeling. “You’re still Dan.”

Dan just looks at him, his expression inscrutable.

“Ok,” He says.

“Ok,” Phil says. “So – let’s watch movies. You said you wanted pizza, right?”

“I,” Dan blinks, then smiles, uncertainly, letting go of Phil’s arms. “Yeah.”

“So we’ll get pizza,” Phil says, fishing his phone out of his pocket.

-

“This is weird.”

“It isn’t,” Phil says.

Dan gives him this look of disbelief that’s all eyebrows, and he laughs.

“Ok, ok, it’s a little weird, but,” Phil pushes the cold glass bottle of substitute in Dan’s hand closer to his mouth. “It’s – you need that stuff to _survive_ , you just said that pizza won’t do it-“

“Pizza’s great, though,” Dan says, wistfully. “Like. You don’t understand how much it sucks to eat good food and…not be affected by it?”

“I can’t even imagine that. Like, it doesn’t fill you up at all?”

Dan shakes his head.

“I mean I feel it sitting here,” He says, patting his stomach through his t-shirt. “But that’s it. It just sits there. I don’t… _feel_ anything.”

“That’s awful,” Phil says.

“I know, right?” Dan says. “It’s – it’s got to be this stuff.” And he lifts the bottle to his mouth for what has to be the twelfth time in the last five minutes, before stopping. “It’s weird.”

“Dan.”

“I don’t – I’ve never, like, done this in front of anyone.”

“You’re drinking out of a bottle,” Phil points out. “That’s what you did last week when you downed the last of the Diet Coke before I could have any.”

Dan tilts his head, clearly amused, and says, “Fair point.” He gives Phil one last look, then shuts his eyes tight and finally takes a drink.

Phil watches his knuckles tighten to white on the neck of the bottle as he keeps drinking, his throat bobbing. Phil feels awkward watching him with his eyes closed like that, so he looks away, his face hot.

“You really need to see someone about, like, all of that,” Dan says in a hoarse voice a moment later, hurriedly wiping his mouth on his sleeve when Phil looks at him. “That was one of the reasons I was gonna tell you sooner rather than later, your heart’s all-“ He makes a motion in the air like a snake or an ocean wave.

“Oh God,” Phil says, feeling his face grow hot.

“I mean, at first I thought you were scared, I dunno-“

“I’m not scared, oh God,” Phil looks away, shutting his eyes tight. “It’s – it’s just you.”

“Just me what?” Dan says, eyes wide and clueless for a second. Phil sees the exact moment when the penny drops. “Oh.”

“It’s – it’s fine,” Phil says, shaking his head. He wants nothing more than for the sofa to sprout razor sharp teeth and swallow him whole. “It’s – you can’t help it, this is all me, I’m sorry.” He shakes his head. “It’s – I don’t have a medical problem, though, that’s – no need to worry about that.”

There’s an unbearably awkward silence after that in which Phil worries that he actually managed to ruin everything after all. It was never gonna be a bag of blood substitute that did it, no, it was always gonna be his big mouth and his ridiculous feelings, he should’ve known that from the start.

“But you know about me now,” Dan says, quietly. When Phil plucks up the courage to look at him he’s scratching his thumbnail against the label of the bottle. “And - and that didn’t change anything?”

He looks up at the last moment, catching Phil’s eye. Phil feels like his heartbeat is so loud that if PJ walked in he’d be able to hear it too, never mind Dan.

“No,” Phil admits, sure his face is glowing red enough to be used as a landing beacon for passing aircraft. “’Course not, you’re – you’re still Dan.”

It’s exactly the same thing he said earlier but somehow completely different. It’s different because then he was saying _you’re still my friend_ and now he’s saying –

He’s saying _you’re still the person I don’t ever stop thinking about_.

“Oh,” Dan says. Then he smiles, small and secretive, turning his head quickly like he doesn’t want Phil to see.

“Don’t, oh my God,” Phil says, smiling just because Dan is - because a smile isn't a bad response, he thinks, relief flooding through him. “Don’t – God, I can’t believe you used your vamp powers to sense that I – I – _you know_.”

“I thought you had a medical problem,” Dan says, and he’s actually laughing now, albeit a little hysterically. “I legitimately thought-“

“Oh my God,” Phil says, laughing too. “Shut _up_.”

“I was worried-!”

“Dan,” Phil says, shaking his head. “This is – this is really, like – are we really joking about this, like-“

His laughter ends abruptly when Dan moves in and gives him a soft, cool kiss on the cheek. He pulls back before Phil can even think – before he can breathe, before he can do anything.

It’s his turn to say, “Oh.”

“Yeah, well,” Dan says, not meeting his eye. “I don’t have a heartbeat to give _me_ away.”

Phil’s honestly about to reach up and touch his face when the door buzzer goes, making the two of them jump.

“Shit,” Phil says, startled, scrambling off the sofa. “It’s – PJ went to Tesco, oh God-“

Which is how he and Dan end up helping PJ lug endless bags of shopping upstairs and into the kitchen.

“I’m so happy,” PJ keeps saying, grinning, apparently oblivious to the fact that Phil and Dan are avoiding each other’s eyes. “I’m – we have a _fridge_ , do you know how great fridges are? And we have an oven!” He drops the final bag on the kitchen floor and waves his arms around in celebration. “I got garlic bread!!”

“You got, like, the entire shopful of garlic bread,” Dan points out, dropping a bag that does seem to be full of garlic bread onto the floor.

PJ looks at Phil, suddenly worried. Phil gets it a second too late.

“Ah, that’s a myth,” He says. “Garlic’s fine.”

There’s a moment when Dan looks at Phil without speaking. Then he looks at PJ and smiles.

“Yeah, I’m good with garlic,” He says.

“That’s alright then,” PJ says, haphazardly unpacking the bag closest to him.

-

“I mean,” Phil says. He and Dan are laughing a little on their way to the bus stop over the random selection of food PJ had bought. “He hasn’t had a house for years, I guess. Or a fridge. Or an oven.”

“Yeah, that explains the twelve tons of garlic bread,” Dan says.

“I mean, garlic bread is pretty great-“

“See if you’re still saying that when he’s sick of it and you have to help him eat it all before it goes off,” Dan says, grinning at him.

“I will see,” Phil says childishly. He feels giddy. He feels like something’s actually going his way for once in his life and he can barely believe it – can barely believe that Dan might actually feel the same way about him.

There’s always gonna be the opposing voice inside him that insists that nobody could ever feel that way about him. But – Dan saw him fight. Dan saw that side of him, and he didn’t run away screaming.

More to the point, Phil saw the other side of Dan, and he didn’t run either. They both stood firm.

He wonders if Dan’s thinking of anything like that when he smiles over at Phil, face lit up yellow in the glow of passing streetlamps. Phil knows he isn’t gonna sleep tonight at all. He always sleeps badly on nights off anyway, his body clock a total mess, but tonight there’s that _and_ Dan to keep him wide awake until morning.

They reach the bus stop in companionable silence, and rather than walking away like he normally does after saying goodbye, Phil ends up standing around, the two of them talking.

“I don’t actually catch the bus,” Dan admits, quietly. He seems ashamed to say it, and Phil wonders why until he adds, “I live in the blue zone.”

“What?” Phil says, shock hitting him like a punch to the gut. “But – aren’t all the houses just empty shells? You can’t – you can’t live _there_.”

“It’s not as bad as that,” Dan says, with a sad little smile and a shrug. “It’s – it’s fine, it’s – it’s fine.”

Phil stares at him. There’s something closed off about Dan’s expression suddenly, the same way it’d been earlier when Phil had surprised him with the blood substitute.

“No,” He says. “Dan – you can’t-“

“People aren’t exactly queuing up around the corner to live with vamps, Phil, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

“I,” Phil starts, then stops. “Wait, is this why you didn’t want to live with me? Because you’re…?” He shakes his head, disbelieving. “Why would you-?”

“Because you don’t have to live with a monster, Phil,” Dan says, like he’s stating bare facts.

“Good job I don’t want to, then,” Phil says, stubbornly. “I just want to live with _you_. I always – I always did, I always wanted you to just say you’d move in, all the way through that stupid flatmate thing. That’s all I wanted.” He shrugs, past the point of being embarrassed by now.

“That’s all I wanted too,” Dan says, sadly. “I just. I don’t know.”

“Yeah, me neither,” Phil says, exasperated. “You should come and live with me.” He pauses, embarrassed, realising how that sounded. “Live with us. Me and PJ, come and live with me and PJ.”

Dan actually smiles for a second.

“You don’t wanna live with me,” He says softly, sounding uncertain.

“No, I just asked for a laugh,” Phil says, pretending to roll his eyes a little. Then, more serious, he adds, “Please. Anything’s better than living in a blue zone.”

He feels like he holds his breath for as long as it takes for Dan to reply.

“Sure,” He says, eventually. “Ok." 

“Ok,” Phil says. His chest feels weirdly tight, like he should be struggling to breathe.

“You and your heart,” Dan says, with a laugh.

“Shut up,” Phil says, pushing him in the arm. “Leave my heart out of this.”

“I’ll try,” Dan says, so quietly that Phil thinks later that he probably misheard.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this took far too long and I'm so so sorry. It was my friend's wedding this week and the buildup to it kind of swept me away and...I fucked up I'm sorry but HERE THE CHAPTER IS AT LAST and IT'S SUPER LONG 
> 
> Shoutouts to the divine palephantom and leblonde for hand holding and tolerating my nonsense. Also a giant THANK YOU to you if you're reading this!!! And anyone who's left kudos or commented!!!! I know I'm still behind on comments but believe me, opening my emails and reading them fills me with so much joy yhgdfcsjk I can't even explain, you're all wonderful <3 <3 
> 
> There are definitely mistakes here. I told Word's spelling and grammar check to fuck off, essentially, and some of the phrasing is super clunky but it's past 1am now and I've been working on this for a solid 12+ hours so I honestly can't find it in me to care right now. I'll be back tomorrow to worry about this shit (but I am sorry if you spot errors)

After that, Phil has two flatmates.

Well, not right away. Dan goes home that night and Phil worries about him. He ends up getting up multiple times to peek through his bedroom curtains at the sweeping light of the guard tower flashing back and forth, thinking about Dan out there somewhere, in some awful falling-down house full of vamps.

In a nest, he thinks. He hadn’t asked, and Dan hadn’t said, which means he might live in a nest. Which is fine, that’s – it’s his choice, but he hadn’t mentioned anything about not normally drinking them when Phil had given him the blood substitutes, so maybe Phil just has to assume that he’s clean.

Or assume that he isn’t. Phil squeezes his eyes shut and pulls the covers up high, and tries to think about good things, like the look on Dan’s face when he’d said  _I don’t have a heartbeat to give_ me _away_.

It doesn’t help. Unbidden, a scenario plays out behind his eyelids of him, scrabbling to open his weapons case, fingernails weak against the metal of the lock, and Dan drooling and snarling outside the closed door, the heavy thud of him throwing himself against the wood, desperate to get in and tear Phil’s throat out—

“No no  _no_ ,” He says, out loud, covering his eyes, like that’ll stop him from  _thinking_. His heart’s beating uncomfortably fast and he’s sweating a little, afraid, but it’s not the thought of Dan as a mindless killing machine that scares him – no, it’s the thought of having to actually go through with it – to fight Dan off, to –

To kill him.

It keeps him up for a long time. Normally he sleeps through the dawn chorus but today his eyes snap open the moment the first warblings start outside his window. He stays in bed ‘til eight, messing around on games on his phone, and it’s only when he hears the creak of PJ’s footsteps in the living room that he remembers with a jolt that he isn’t alone here anymore.

“Sorry,” PJ says when Phil stumbles into the kitchen in his dressing gown. PJ’s wearing a jumper and his feet are bare and pale against the kitchen tiles. “Did I wake you up?”

Phil shakes his head and groans when PJ laughs.

“Caffeine’s on its way,” He says, kindly. Phil had forgotten how difficult he is just after he’d woken up – he’s still not used to encountering anyone else during his pre-coffee caveman phase. PJ doesn’t seem bothered at all though, and Phil watches him make the pair of them coffee in something of a daze.

“I got this yesterday,” PJ says, pulling a jar of coffee out of the cupboard. It’s a fancier brand than the one Phil normally lets himself buy. “It’s, um. It has, like, a hint of hazelnut, or something? I don’t really…know anything about coffee, but it looked fancy and I thought you’d like it, so.” He stabs a teaspoon through the seal and holds the jar out for Phil to smell.

“Mm,” Phil says, eloquently. “I. You didn’t have to buy coffee.”

“Oh, I know,” PJ says, spooning it into mugs. “But. I dunno, I just wanted to make sure you knew that I don’t mind sharing stuff. Like. So I bought this, so we can share it.”

Phil doesn’t really know what to say to that. He just watches PJ drumming his fingers on the counter as he waits for the kettle to boil, and thinks about how it’s not just him out of the two of them who’s been alone for a long time.

It isn’t until they’re settled in the living room with coffee that Phil gets a text off Dan.

_Hey so I just wanted to know if you’ve changed your mind about me moving in_

It’s so strangely formal that Phil blinks at his phone for a moment, surprised.

_Of course not?? Do you need help moving your stuff_

“Do you mind if I-?” PJ says, gesturing at the TV.

“No, no, ‘course not,” Phil says, just as Dan replies.

_No it’s ok. You should be asleep? It’s early_

_Couldn’t sleep_ , Phil types then deletes.

_Dawn chorus woke me up. Why do the birds hate me_ , he sends instead.

_SLEEP_ , Dan says. Then he types for what feels like most of Phil’s life, before sending a heart emoji.

Phil squeezes his eyes shut and smiles. It’s daft but he feels so much over that stupid cartoon heart that he has to put his phone face down on the arm of the sofa and act like he didn’t see it for a minute, even though he totally opened the text and Dan’ll know already that he saw it.

“…what this’ll mean for the families of those convicted of red classification crimes remains to be seen,” A reporter in a suit is saying. She’s outside Scotland Yard or something. Before Phil ever went to London he used to think that they must’ve just put that big silver sign in for news broadcasts – and then he visited London and saw the sign in real life and realised he was probably right. “It’s possibly the biggest pro-undead citizen legislation we’ve seen in recent years…”

“What?” Phil says. “What is it?”

“They’re, er, something about enthrallment,” PJ says. “It’s, er. A legally recognised state – there we go-“

The tickertape at the bottom of the screen says  _BREAKING NEWS: ENTHRALLMENT LEGALLY RECOGNISED BY HIGH COURT_.

The news cuts to a tearful woman surrounded by her family and camera flashes, outdoors somewhere, reading from a piece of paper that trembles in her hands.

“Ten years ago,” She says, her voice shaking as much as her hands. “My daughter was hunted down and killed not so far from here. And it’s taken years of – of campaigning to get to today. My daughter was enthralled. She wasn’t responsible for her actions, and she didn’t deserve to be – be treated like that.” She stops for a moment, shaking her head, pained. “It’s too late for her, but maybe this new recognition can help save someone else’s child, and – and for that I’m grateful.”

Phil feels uncomfortable and hot all of a sudden, the back of his neck prickling like he just got shoved in front of an audience. He thinks about Martyn and that vamp – the vamp who would’ve killed him if Phil hadn’t done something…the vamp who was enthralled…

“What does that even mean, though,” PJ says, eyes wide over his mug. “Like – I know what enthrallment is, but what does all that mean-“

“It, er,” Phil’s voice sounds croaky and faint, so he clears his throat. “It looks like they’re taking into consideration whether vampires are enthralled when they, um. When they attack people, I guess.”

“…there’s been no mention of what will happen to undead citizens who are now found to be enthralled when they attack, is that correct?”

“Yes, it has to be said that this legislation has raised a lot of questions too,” The reporter outside Scotland Yard is saying. “As of yet there’s no confirmed cure when an undead citizen is in their enthralled state, so whether this means the government will attempt to fund research into cures…We just don’t know, it’s very early days here at the moment…”

“Smells work, right?” PJ says, suddenly. “For, like. Enthrallment. Certain smells? To like…snap them out of it?”

Phil shrugs.

“There’s no proof,” He says, repeating what his parents always told him. “Like. It’s best to just assume there’s no cure ‘cause there are no recorded, like, cases of enthralled vamps regaining their, um. Consciousness.”

It comforted him for years, that thought, as ugly as it sounds. The thought that nothing could’ve saved the guy Phil killed even if he had been able to save Martyn without harming him. That he would always have been this mindless killing machine, no matter what anyone did.

The thought that there might be a cure, that the whole familiar smell theory was more than wishful thinking and a pervasive urban myth, made Phil feel like there was something heavy and cold sitting in the middle of his chest, weighing down his heart.

He picks up his phone to distract himself and finds another text from Dan.

_Was that weird I take it back_

_No no don’t take it back_ , Phil says, and adds a heart emoji just because he doesn’t want to be that guy who gets one but doesn’t give one back.  _When do u want to come over?_

_Is asap ok?_  Dan replies almost immediately.  _It’s ok if not_

_Asap is great_ , Phil says.

Dan just sends him a kiss. Phil has to close his eyes and laugh a little under his breath because he can’t quite believe it.

“Everything ok?” PJ asks.

“Yeah, just Dan,” Phil says, feeling his face grow warm. He tries to sound as indifferent as possible when he adds, “He’s bringing his stuff over soon.”

“Oh,” PJ says. Something in the way he says that coupled with the way he waggles his eyebrows makes Phil pretty sure his half-hearted stab at indifference fell short.

“Shut up.”

PJ laughs.

“I didn’t say anything!”

“Good,” Phil says, trying for grumpy but smiling just because PJ is. “We’re not – we’re not like that.”

“I didn’t say anything, oh my God, that was  _you_  saying something.”

“Yeah, well,” Phil says, feeling heat creeping up the back of his neck. “It’s – just so you know.”

“Consider me in the loop,” PJ says, grinning, and Phil makes a show of rolling his eyes before he laughs, awkward with embarrassment. “Hey, can I ask you something?”

“If it’s about Dan-“

“It’s not about Dan,” PJ says. “It’s. Listen, don’t be mad, and – and you can totally say no, but – is there any way you could teach me to hunt?”

The silence that follows this question is so complete that Phil can hear the ticking of the clock on the wall. He’s mostly relieved, to be honest – relieved because what is it about someone saying  _can I ask you something_  that’s guaranteed to ratchet up your blood pressure?

And then the dread creeps in as he thinks of a thousand snapshots of his adolescent hunting lessons, training for certification and being too young and stupid and desperate for praise to acknowledge that there was very little difference between knowing all the different ways to stab a vamp in the throat or the face or the chest and being someone who murdered innocent people and took satisfaction in it.

He thinks of the tearful woman who’d just been on the news, talking about the death of her daughter. He thinks about the way he’d just killed that guy, the enthralled vamp, his mum’s friend’s son, like it was nothing – just wrenched him away from Martyn and stabbed him in the heart hard enough that Phil had felt his ribs break under his hands.

He thinks about his uncle and the way he used to snap fangs out of the mouths of dead vamps. That's illegal now, but Phil’s almost certain he probably still does it when he hunts – like he takes joy in killing people.

Phil thinks he might throw up. PJ’s talking, saying something that sounds concerned, and it takes him a moment to tune back in, like he’s a radio on the wrong frequency.

“…shouldn’t have said anything, I’m sorry-“

“No, no, it’s ok,” Phil says, his voice a little faint. He coughs and, sounding a little stronger, adds, “I just. Um. I don’t really do much of that anymore. Like. And I never really trained anyone, and – and I don’t really wanna, like.” He pauses, swallows. “You don’t wanna be a murderer, PJ.”

“What?” PJ says, sounding horrified. “Of course not, I just – I only wanted to learn some, like, self-defence techniques, you know? I – I don’t wanna go out and, like,  _kill_  people, Jesus.”

“I’m just,” Phil says, feeling foolish and embarrassed at himself. “That’s how I got taught, that’s – that’s my certification, we – we never asked anyone for their colours or anything, if they were out in the fields and they seemed suspicious we – we’d just  _attack_ , and –“ He swallows. “I dunno. It was a long time ago.”

“It’s ok,” PJ says. “I’m sorry, I should’ve thought before I said anything, I-“

“No, no, it’s ok,” Phil says, shaking his head more at himself than anything else. “I’m. You can’t just go out and hunt, ‘cause – ‘cause without certification that’s illegal anyway, and –“

“I won’t,” PJ says, earnestly. “I wouldn’t. It’s literally just – just to feel a bit safer if I’m out alone, that’s all.”

Part of Phil is so apprehensive about this, because he barely knows PJ at all at this point, but what he does know is that he’s suffered at the hands of vamps in his time. Phil wouldn’t blame PJ at all if he harboured some deep-seated grudge against all vampires, but he seems calm enough about Dan moving in with them.

And that’s without mentioning how kind he seems – how he’d bought Phil fancy coffee they could both share, and how he just seems like a good person.

“I mean,” Phil says, slowly. “What about-? You could apply for hunting certification, I mean, if you really wanted.”

PJ pulls a face.

“I don’t wanna go that far,” He says. “And I couldn’t afford it anyway.” He pauses, looking worried. “Look, it doesn’t matter, I’m – I’m really sorry for bringing it up.”

“No, no, it’s ok,” Phil says. “I’ll do it.”

“Wait, really?”

Phil nods, his throat feeling tight.

“Really,” He says. “But – but just defensive stuff, ok, and if I hear you’ve killed anyone for fun I’m gonna – I’ll report you straight away, alright, like, literally when you still have a knife in your hand I’ll be on the phone, because I can’t-“

“Thank you thank you thank you!” PJ says all in a rush, leaping up to lean awkwardly over Phil and hug him, Phil’s empty coffee cup squishing into PJ’s stomach. “Oh God, I won’t do anything like that, I just want to defend myself, that’s all, like – I promise you won’t regret it.” Letting Phil go, he adds, “It’ll be like season 7 of  _Buffy_  with the potentials.”

Phil makes a weird noise that’s a cross between a groan and a laugh.

“What?” PJ says, misinterpreting him. “You’ve seen  _Buffy_ , right?”

Laughing a little more, Phil says, “Yeah, I’ve seen it.”

“It’ll be like that,” PJ says, with a grin. “Do you want another coffee?”

“That’d be great, thanks,” Phil says. PJ takes his empty cup and waltzes off to the kitchen, humming under his breath and leaving Phil wondering if he just made a gigantic mistake.

-

Worrying about the logistics of teaching PJ how to hunt is all he can really focus on for a long while after that – even after PJ himself has nipped out to post his makeshift flyers about cash-in-hand DIY work through people’s letterboxes (“Just something ‘til I find a real job,” He’d explained, almost guiltily, before he’d left).

Maybe that’s why when Dan arrives a short while after PJ leaves, Phil’s struck dumb by him when he walks through the door. He’s bundled up in his coat as usual, with a backpack pulled up high on his shoulders like a kid just starting Year Seven. He’s also carrying a mini fridge, but none of those things are why Phil feels like his tongue just inflated in his mouth like a balloon, stifling his ability to talk.

No, that’s just the memory of Dan’s cold lips against his cheek and his quiet admission the previous evening, the kisses and emoji hearts he’s had since. It’s the fact that Dan’s so guilelessly  _beautiful_ , so awkwardly unaware of what he looks like when he distractedly tries to blow his fringe off his forehead – so unknowing of the effect he has on other people.

Phil thinks that if he’d dragged a mini fridge and a heavy looking backpack up a flight of stairs he’d be a disgusting dishevelled mess.

“I hate fridges, did I mention,” Dan says instead of hello. “I, like, wanna come back in my next life as a fridge technician and then I can just go to people’s houses and murder their fridges. Having to lug this piece of shit around is my fridge villain origin story. Hi,” He adds, with a smile.

“Hi,” Phil says, feeling awkward now that Dan’s here and looking at him and smiling like that. “I, er. Hi.”

“Hi,” Dan says again, laughing a little. Phil laughs too, even though he can feel his face flushing at how much of an idiot he is. “I mean, I could do this all day, but…”

“Shut up,” Phil says, sounding painfully fond. “Here, I’ll take that.”

“No, no, it’s ok,” Dan says, not letting the fridge go. “Just show me where I’m going and I’ll dump it in there.”

The room that Dan’s gonna have is another spare – one Phil didn’t even think to offer to PJ on account of it being so tiny. When Phil’s aunt had lived in the flat this had been her junk room. Most of her junk is gone now, but there’s still an old wardrobe with a few board games in it and a squishy single bed that she’d left behind, pushed up against the window.

It’s only when he’s actually showing Dan into the room that it truly hits Phil how small and subpar it is. He feels guilty for even showing it to Dan, like he has to give him a guided tour when it’s one of the smallest rooms in the world.

At least Phil had changed the bedsheets the previous evening before bed, much to PJ’s amusement by how long it’d taken him (“I don’t normally have an audience,” He’d protested after hitting his elbow on the wall for the fourth time and hearing a snort of amusement from the doorway).

“It’s, I mean,” Phil says, awkwardly shuffling in by the wardrobe just so Dan can get in too. “It’s not perfect. Like. Um. If you want you could always, er, I dunno, sleep in my room. I –“ Dan looks at him, and his perfectly crafted sentence falls apart on his tongue. “Instead of me! Not – not as well as, I-  _instead_  of me.”

Dan just smiles and rolls his eyes.

“Right, so you just give up your room. In  _your_  flat. That makes so much sense, Phil-“

“I just. It’s the worst,” Phil says, shoulders slumping a little. “I’m – I’m sorry, I-“

“It’s not the worst,” Dan says. “Trust me, it’s – you didn’t see my old room, ok,  _that_  was the worst. This is – it’s perfect.” And he smiles again, so pretty in that second that it kind of hurts. “Thanks.”

“It’s, um. It’s fine,” Phil says, feeling flustered. It doesn’t help knowing that Dan  _knows_  how flustered he is, that even if he was capable of outwardly playing it as cool as a cucumber Dan literally thought he had a mild heart condition for months because of how not cool Phil is.

Dan sets the fridge down at the side of the bed.

“You know you could’ve just kept your substitutes in the main fridge, right,” Phil says, gently. “Like, that would’ve been fine.”

Dan just pulls a face, shaking his head like the idea is unthinkable.

“You guys don’t wanna see that when you’re making coffee.”

He sounds so certain, as though seeing a pouch of fake blood when Phil’s getting milk will make him wanna throw up when he’s seen far worse things in his time. He’s about to say so when Dan pulls a face as he’s taking off a glove and something about it makes Phil look down at his hands.

“Shit, are you ok? What’s-? What happened?” Dan makes a half-hearted attempt to pull his glove back on but he winces and gives up when Phil moves closer, gently pulling the glove all the way off. His knuckles are swollen and split open and bleeding. Vamp blood’s a little darker than human blood – it oozes rather than flows. “Dan, what the fuck? Is your other hand like this too?”

Dan just doesn’t say anything for a moment, stretching his fingers with a little pained noise when Phil carefully peels his other glove off.

“I really can’t imagine you, like, having a fistfight with someone,” Phil says, thinking of Dan’s knife. “But…”

“Bad flatmates,” Dan says, weakly. “It’s ok, it’ll clear up in a few hours.”

“What, they – they tried to stop you from leaving?” Phil says. He can see the moment that Dan closes off because his hands go still in Phil’s for a second and then he pulls them away. “Sorry, sorry. None of my business.”

“No, no,” Dan says, quickly, because Phil had been moving awkwardly towards the door, already beating himself up for having crossed another boundary again. “Sorry, I. I just got into a fight with him, that’s all. Not a nice guy.”

“Ok,” Phil says. He knows from experience that Dan’s right – vampire wounds will heal in a matter of hours depending on the age and health of the vamp in question. “You should, um. Antiseptic spray, or something, at least. Just to clean up the cuts.”

Dan nods.

“I’ll be out in a minute,” He says, and when he smiles Phil could almost forget to worry.

“Coffee?”

“Please.”

Phil distracts himself with the familiar routine of filling the kettle and spooning the fancy instant coffee PJ bought into cups. He thinks about Dan’s fight with the faceless flatmate and wishes he’d been there. Not because he thinks Dan can’t take care of himself – he clearly can, considering the only injuries it looks like he’s sustained are his hands – but even so. Phil could’ve dug out one of his more impressive weapons – the lance he has somewhere that he thinks might be illegal now – and gone along with him.

Like his bodyguard. Phil snorts at the idea. Even back when he was training every day he cut a less than impressive figure whenever he and Martyn went out to check the back fields for feral vamps, especially when he was younger and even more awkward looking. Sometimes the vamps would laugh right up until Phil had them on the ground with a blade jammed up against their throat.

Remembering those days – those patrols with his brother – makes him think about training PJ. Is he really gonna do this? Did he really agree? What if he accidentally hurts PJ? He didn’t mean to break that vampire’s arm the other day and that still happened.

He can’t be trusted when he’s in fighting mode, he thinks.

“Look,” He says, under his breath, practicing what he’s gonna say to PJ. “If I hurt you then…then…”

“Then what?” Dan says softly behind him, making him jump and slop milk on the floor.

“Oh shit,” Phil says, while Dan dives for a cloth. “Sorry, still not used to other people being here, Jesus. Let me do that,” He adds, when Dan drops the cloth on the splash of milk and starts pushing it around with his socked foot.

“Not hygienic but it’s efficient,” He says, grinning when Phil gives him a look. “If you hurt what? What was that about?”

“Oh, just,” Phil shakes his head, adding milk to the coffee and then putting it safely back in the fridge. “Peej wants me to, like, teach him how to fight, so I said I would. Only now I’m, like,” He waggles his fingers by his head. “Worrying about hurting him, I dunno.”

“Well, he has to know there’s a chance of that,” Dan says, fairly. “Just like how there’s a chance he might hurt you.”

“Mm,” Phil says.

“If you’re really worried you could just…tell him you can’t do it,” Dan suggests. “Thanks,” He adds, warmly, when Phil passes him his coffee.

“Nah,” Phil says with a sigh. “I promised now. And, like.” He thinks about the scars on PJ’s arms. “It’ll be good for him, I know it will. I’ll – I’ll do it.”

“Ok,” Dan says, quietly.

They drink their coffee in silence for a moment. Phil’s remembering his first ever hunting lesson – the chart in the kitchen cupboard that his dad probably got online, the poster outline of a human body with vampire weaknesses written on by his mum in black marker pen.

He looks over at Dan, standing leaning against the kitchen counter in his socked feet. Phil won’t have to walk him to the bus stop tonight, he thinks. The thought makes him feel warm and happy, even though it shouldn’t. Even though Dan’s knuckles are still dark and split where his hands are curled around his coffee cup.

“We should, um,” Phil says, slowly, tearing his eyes away from Dan’s hands. Not that looking at his face is any less distracting. “Go to Ikea at some point. Pick up some stuff for your room.”

“What?” Dan says, halfway through Phil’s sentence. “No, no, it’s ok, we don’t need to-“

“Just to make it more – I dunno, more like a room, that’s all,” Phil says. “I feel bad that you get stuck with the shit bedroom.”

“It’s not shit,” Dan insists. “You didn’t see my room in the blue zone, Phil, like I said. That was – that was gross, ok, this – this is great.”

“Even so,” Phil says. He could buy Dan some little cushions or something, or fairy lights. Just something to alleviate the weird twisting feeling in his stomach that he gets when he looks at Dan’s injured hands, or when he thinks about him living in a horrible room in the blue zone for all these months.

“It’s fine, Phil,” Dan says. He looks uncomfortable, and Phil doesn’t understand why ‘til he adds. “I don’t – being – being.” He stops for a moment, frowning at himself. “Being dead isn’t, like, a lucrative business. And – and I don’t have a job, and –“

“And I’ve got money,” Phil says.

“No,” Dan says, shaking his head. “No, Phil-“

“That – that came out wrong,” Phil says, hurriedly. “I don’t – I don’t mean it like  _that_  – whatever  _that_  is. I mean. I owe you. For, like, saving my life.”

“Right, yeah, because I really pulled that vamp off you so I could get an Ikea trip further down the line, that was totally my motivation,” Dan says, dryly. “Phil. I can’t even pay  _rent_  properly, and that’s – I feel shit enough about that without you buying me things that I can’t pay you back for.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to pay me back,” Phil says. “I just. You deserve nice things, you know? Like.” He thinks about the horrible feeling in his stomach and wonders how to explain. “I just want to do something for you, I dunno.”

“You are doing stuff for me,” Dan says. “You just – you made me coffee! And I’m gonna live rent-free in your flat-“

“In a tiny room,” Phil reminds him. “With – with a tiny bed-“

“Phil,” Dan says, firm but quiet. Phil swallows awkwardly, something about the way Dan had said his name making him feel hot and weird. “It’s honestly ok. Being here is – it’s enough, ok? More than enough.”

“As long as you’re sure,” Phil says, uncertainly. He privately decides that he’s gonna go to Ikea alone at some point anyway and buy Dan things for his room, whether he likes it or not. He can hardly turn down a gift.

“I’m sure,” Dan says, suddenly closer than he’d been before, like the kitchen had shrunk around them and Phil’s only just noticed. “I, um.” He reaches out the hand not holding his coffee, and Phil notices how bitten his fingernails are right before he taps his index finger against the middle of Phil’s chest, so lightly he barely felt the connection. “It’s a good noise. Your heart, I mean. I like it.”

Phil doesn’t know what to say for a moment.

“I mean, I kind of like it too,” He says, his mouth dry. “Like. Hope it keeps going, you know.”

He’s trying to make it into a joke, but Dan doesn’t take the bait.

“Same,” He says, sincerely. “It’s, um. Relaxing, I dunno. Like wave sounds or something.” When Phil doesn’t say anything immediately, he quickly adds, “Sorry, that was too much-“

“No, no,” Phil says, quickly. “No, it wasn’t.”

-

Dan goes out for a little while after that. He and Phil have been sat idly on the sofa since lunchtime, ignoring the TV as it plays to itself in the background and talking about anything and everything. Phil’s been torturing himself the entire time by being far too aware of how close together their hands are on the back of the sofa – close enough that they could be holding hands if Phil would just move.

How come it was all so easy yesterday, he thinks, before their weird conversation about Phil’s heart? Before Phil ended up revealing everything to Dan? He feels like this whole thing was slightly more bearable when he could at least pretend it was a secret, but now Dan knows, and the knowledge is heavy between them. Phil feels like his every action is spotlit, thrown into sharp relief, Dan’s eyes knowing and watching his every move.

_I don’t have a heartbeat to give me away_ , he’d said, but what did that  _mean_? Was it wishful thinking for Phil to think they’re both on the same page, or is he being wilfully disbelieving by questioning everything so much?

He doesn’t know, so he just quietly watches Dan when they talk. He watches the shapes he makes with his hands and his dimple when he smiles, and wishes his heart didn’t leap tellingly every time he catches Dan looking right back at him.

It’s a stalemate, that’s what it is, eyes catching on Dan’s hands – now fully healed, as though he’d never hurt himself. They both confessed, in a way, but neither of them are gonna do anything about it. Or at least, Phil isn’t willing to do anything about it until he’s sure that Dan’s confession was even a confession in the first place.

The whole thing’s a mess. Phil might liken it to high school if anyone he’d liked had even shown him the slightest bit of interest back then.

In an attempt to take his mind off it, he starts talking about training with PJ that evening. He’s already decided they’ll have to do it on the roof of the apartment building (and just hope against hope that none of their neighbours notice and complain).

“Before work?” Dan says, doubtfully.

“I dunno, I’m already awake,” Phil says. “And – and we can just head straight off at, like, six.” He stops, realising what he just said. “Not that – not that you have to come with me, or anything. You know that, right?” When Dan doesn’t say anything right away, Phil’s face prickles hot with shame. “Oh God, have I been dragging you to the library all this time when you didn’t want to be there? Oh  _God_ -“

“No, no,” Dan says, touching him for all of half a second – a flash of cool skin against where his veins show blue in his wrist. “Don’t be daft, of course I want to come with you. It’s our thing.”

“It’s my job,” Phil reminds him, ignoring the way he feels like . “I feel bad for, like, dragging you along-“

“Nobody’s being  _dragged_  anywhere,” Dan says. “I – I go with you ‘cause I wanna go with you. If I didn’t want to go I just wouldn’t.” There’s a pause where neither of them say anything, and Phil just idly looks at Dan and the way he bites his lip and wishes he wasn’t a coward. “Just – just don’t train too hard or you’ll be exhausted all night.”

“I mean, I’m gonna be exhausted anyway,” Phil points out. “But don’t worry, I won’t.”

-

When Dan leaves, he lingers in the doorway for a moment.

“I’ll be back later,” He says, and something about hearing him say that makes Phil smile.

Dan smiles too.

“I’ll have to get used to that,” He says.

“Me too,” Phil says. “Hey,” He adds, when Dan gives him one last look and moves to turn away. “If we’re not here when you get back we’ll be on the roof. See you at half five?”

“See you then,” Dan says, and goes, the door shutting behind him with a soft click.

-

By half three, Phil and PJ are on the roof and well into their first ever training session, and Phil’s actually enjoying himself. It’s a conflicted feeling that’s mixed up in a lot of confusing childhood memories. He feels guilty for not hating every second, but happy because PJ seems happy, grinning over at him every chance he gets.

It’s been barely no time at all since he was deliberating in his room over just wearing a vest on the roof to stay cool, and worrying that he might throw up everywhere with nerves (what if he hurt PJ somehow, what if this whole thing ended in disaster, what if…)

In the end he’d caught sight of his too-pale reflection in the mirror and his shoulders, strange and bone white from lack of sun exposure. It’d been enough to spur him into pulling an unbuttoned shirt on over the top just to make himself feel better.

“You look like you’re gonna beat me up,” PJ had told him, cheerfully, apropos of nothing.

“Yeah, well,” Phil had said uncomfortably. “That’s the one thing that isn’t gonna happen.”

I won’t hurt PJ, he’d thought all the way up the stairs, the sentence pounding through his head with each step he took. We’re starting small, I’m not going to hurt him.

His vow to start small means that the first session probably isn’t what PJ had been expecting at all, and involves more talking than it does actual physical activity. He asks PJ what he already knows about vamps and their weaknesses, and then passes over some new knowledge that doesn’t even involve fighting.

“Most of hunter training isn’t about the fighting,” Phil says, much to PJ’s disbelief. “I’m serious! If you can avoid a fight then you’ve done well, that’s, like, rule number one.”

“So it isn’t like  _Buffy_  after all,” PJ says. Phil can’t help but smile at how disappointed he sounds.

“Afraid not. And trust me, I always wanted it to be when I was growing up.”

After he’s established how much PJ knows about vampires and the ways to recognise enthrallment, Phil decides to finish by teaching him some simple blocking moves. He does his best to break it down into the simplest terms, speaking gently when PJ clearly gets frustrated with himself.

“You just duck and move,” Phil says, encouragingly. “Vamps might be fast when they want to be but they’re stupid. The moment of attack is when they’re at their most vulnerable.”

“ _Just duck and move,_ ” PJ mumbles. “That’s easy for you to say.”

“You’re overthinking it,” Phil says, patiently. They’re circling each other as they talk, so much that Phil’s in danger of getting dizzy. “Ok, look. Forget duck and move. I’m gonna try and land a touch on your shoulder and I want you to get out of my way, however you want to do it. Ok?”

“So you want me to get out of the way the wrong way,” PJ says, sceptically.

“No,” Phil says. He’s sweating – it’s a surprisingly hot afternoon, and that coupled with the training is making him feel gross. “Sorry, just-“ He shrugs off his shirt without stopping in their weird circling dance, throwing it off somewhere and hoping against hope he doesn’t end up tripping over it in about five minutes. “Look, don’t think about right ways and wrong ways. Yeah, I’m trying to teach you the most efficient way to dodge, but – but efficiency is subjective. When you’re in a fight I don’t want you to think  _oh hey, better do it this way ‘cause that’s what Phil says_. You should trust your instincts, ‘cause that’s what you’re gonna do anyway.”

“Ok,” PJ says.

“Ok,” Phil agrees, nodding. “So here we go-“

Phil darts forwards, not putting his hand out yet to throw PJ off, but PJ’s already moved, hopping sideways out of the way. Phil follows him, keeping close enough that they’re in danger of tripping over each other’s feet.

“Fuck,” PJ shouts, laughing, and that sets Phil off giggling like they’re playing a primary school game.

He lunges for PJ and PJ makes this squawking noise and the two of them end up hitting the ground hard enough that Phil ends up gasping for air for a moment.

“Ow,” PJ says, right before the two of them burst into laughter.

“Don’t, don’t,” Phil says a few moments later, trying to catch his breath. His shoulders sting – probably something to do with him trying to be cool and throwing his shirt off like that, fucking  _ow_. “Ouch, Christ, I’m-“

“Oh God, let me look,” PJ says, sitting up when Phil does and reaching out for his shoulder. It’s only by chance that Phil happens to look across to the roof entrance and see Dan standing there, lurking in the shadow of the doorway. “There’s been a casualty!”

“I think that’s a good place to end today,” Phil says, awkwardly, clambering to his feet. Somehow he feels about twelve times more aware of his lack of a proper shirt with Dan walking over to the two of them than he has done this entire time. He looks around on the ground and spots his discarded button-down and hurries over to pick it up.

“You’ve just got some scrapes, Phil,” PJ says. His forehead’s glinting with sweat and he still manages to look great. “D’you want me to go and get the first aid kit?”

“I can go,” Dan says, already taking a step back towards the door.

“No, no, it’s ok,” PJ says, so suddenly that Phil gives him a look as he hurries past. He just raises his eyebrows. “I won’t be long!”

“PJ,” Phil says, remembering the way he’d waggled his eyebrows earlier when he’d mentioned Dan. “You don’t-“

But he’s already gone, the door to the building slamming shut behind him. Phil stands for a moment with his shirt clutched to his chest, feeling sweaty and ugly and wishing Dan wasn’t looking at him right this second.

“Sorry,” Dan says, out of nowhere. “I, er. I was watching you guys for a little while. I dunno. Um.” He pauses and breathes out a laugh. “Sorry, it’s just. There’s no way to say  _I like watching you fight_  and have it not be weird, is there?”

“I mean,” Phil says, smiling so widely his face hurts. “You already did the whole, er, you’d  _swipe right on a photo of me fighting_  thing, so.”

“Oh God,” Dan says, and covers his face with his hand, laughing. “Shut up, don’t look at me, I forgot about that.”

Phil laughs, feeling lighter than air.

“It’s probably the best reaction I’ve ever got to me fighting someone, I’m not gonna lie.”

Dan peeks out at Phil between his fingers, melodramatically, and says, “You’re making it worse.”

“You’re the one who said it in the first place!”

“Yeah, well,” Dan says, moving his hand away from his face. “It’s. You move in this  _way_ , it’s just…” He waves his hand expressively in Phil’s general direction. “I dunno. It’s great to watch.”

“Well,” Phil says, somehow feeling more winded than he had when PJ had literally knocked him to the ground. “Thank you? I don’t know what to say to that, I dunno.“

“Don’t say anything, I’ll just go,” Dan says, making a show of turning back towards the roof door, like he’s about to leave. Then he turns and smiles. “Lemme look at your back.”

How about no nearly trips off Phil’s tongue along with his desire to put his shirt on and button it all the way up before Dan can even get any closer, but he just stays quiet and still for a second.

“Why?” He asks, uneasily. “It’s just a graze, Peej went to get first aid stuff-“

“And I’ve got cold hands,” Dan says, waggling his fingers. It’s a weird thing to say when the way his eyes move from Phil’s face to his neck and shoulders makes Phil feel overheated and slow.

“Right,” Phil says.

Which is how they end up sitting near the edge of the building with Dan gently placing his cold fingers over the tiny grazes on Phil’s back. Phil doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t trust himself to say anything so at first he tries to keep quiet, but he’s always been a nervous talker so it isn’t long ‘til words start spilling out of him.

Dan just listens and gently runs the pads of his fingertips across Phil’s exposed shoulders. It’s the strangest sensation, somewhere between pain and being tickled, all messed up with the knowledge that Dan’s sitting so close and touching him. The memory of Phil’s recurring dream comes to him as if carried by the breeze.

“I feel bad for enjoying the training,” Phil admits, after a little while of nervously babbling on about the weather.

“What? Why?”

“Because,” Phil says, breathing out a humourless laugh. “Learning to hunt at home was only ever – it was only ever how to kill, that was it. It took me so long to realise that all my parents had done was – was raise a murderer.” Dan starts to say something but Phil keeps talking. “I know what you’re gonna say, you’re – you’re gonna say that I’m not a murderer, but. Did you hear about enthrallment being legally recognised?” He gulps down a breath, staring hard down at his own hands. “I killed that guy, Dan. I – I  _killed_  him.”

“Is this the guy who was gonna kill your brother?” Dan says, after a moment’s pause. Phil nods, then shifts so he can turn and see Dan’s face, half expecting to see horror there.

“You saved your brother,” Dan says, simply. “That’s it, Phil, you  _saved_  him.”

“But,” Phil says, the guilt he’s been suppressing all day making his insides ache. “But he was like  _you_ , like – if you were enthralled, and someone killed  _you_ -“

“Then that’d be for the best,” Dan says, his voice hard all of a sudden. “There’s no cure. You didn’t kill him, because there wasn’t anything left of him to kill. You just killed the monster that got left behind.” He pauses and swallows, looking away, out across the city. “You’re not a murderer, ok, and you shouldn’t feel bad for teaching PJ how to defend himself. I’m – I’m not saying that it’s not good, the new legislation, but…it doesn’t change anything about what you do, or what you’ve done.”

“That’s what worries me,” Phil says. “I still did it, I – I still have to live with the fact that I-“

“Saved your brother’s life,” Dan repeats. “Phil, stop.” He puts his hand on Phil’s bare shoulder and squeezes. “You being a hunter doesn’t make you a monster, ok? And – and that’s coming straight from the monster’s mouth, or whatever.”

“ _You’re_  not a monster,” Phil insists. There’s a moment when they look at each other and then they end up cracking up. “God, it sounds stupid without context.”

“Just a little bit,” Dan says, his smile fading fast. “Please don’t feel bad about this shit, Phil.”

“I’ll stop when you stop,” Phil says, wryly, his own smile fading too. He looks out across the city – at the distant greenery of trees and the glint of far off skyscraper windows in the sunlight. “It just. It really makes me resent my parents, I dunno. And I feel bad about it but…I can’t stop. When that news item was on this morning all I could think was that it was their fault.” He laughs at himself, bitterly. “Which is stupid, ‘cause they were just doing what they thought was best when they trained me, and – and I always had free will, like, nobody made me do anything, nobody  _made_  me kill that guy.“

“Phil, I swear to God,” Dan says, his voice low. His hand’s still on Phil’s shoulder and he shakes him a little. “How come your parents get a free pass and you don’t? What, so they’re allowed to have been doing their best but you have to feel guilty for your entire life? That’s bullshit.”

Phil shrugs.

Dan makes a frustrated noise in the back of his throat. When he moves his hand off Phil’s shoulder and shuffles in closer, all Phil can think of in that one wild moment is that Dan’s about to kiss him. He touches gentle fingers to Phil’s chin, the kind of touch that’s barely a whisper.

“Listen,” He says. “Are you listening?”

“I always listen to you,” Phil says, feeling giddy. “Especially when you’re so close you’re making me cross-eyed.”

“Good,” Dan says, not taking the bait for humour once again. “Because what your parents did for you saved your life, alright? It saved you and it saved your brother. Trust me, alright? Like.” He pauses and stops touching Phil, falling back a little. When he turns to look out across the city again the wind blows his hair and Phil feels like he’s watching a film. “My parents just kind of left me to my own devices. I’m – I’m not saying they didn’t love me, I. They did, they loved me, but – but beyond telling me not to go out after dark they didn’t know what to do, so they just…didn’t do anything.” He pauses and seems to withdraw into himself, shoulders hunching more, twisting his hands together in his lap. “And I’m dead, so.”

“Dan.”

“No, no, it’s fine,” Dan says. He doesn’t look back but he lets Phil take hold of his hand, looking down at their fingers. “I know it’s not their fault that I’m…I’m just saying, ok, I know it’s hard and I know it’s none of my business, but your parents probably saved your life with the stuff they taught you.”

His voice is unsteady and small. Phil squeezes his hand tightly, worried that he might cry.

“I’m sorry,” He says, helplessly.

Dan shakes his head, eyes closed. When he finally turns to look Phil in the eye, he’s forcing a smile.

“We should go and see where PJ got to with that first aid kit-“

“Dan-“

“Come on,” Dan says, ignoring him, scrambling to his feet and helping Phil up too, their hands still clasped together, Dan’s tight grip on Phil’s fingers belying his suddenly bright tone. “Your shift starts soon anyway-“

“Dan,” Phil says, holding firm.

Dan looks at him, almost fearful, and Phil just has to hug him, so tight he can barely breathe.

“I’m ok, I’m ok,” Dan says, pulling away after what feels like too short a time. Phil doesn’t care about being late for work – he feels like his sadness for Dan is so heavy inside of him that he  _aches_ , like his guts are made of lead. “Just don’t feel bad about something that’s kept you alive, alright?”

Phil desperately wants to say that that’s not what he feels bad about at all, but the look on Dan’s face makes the words stick uselessly in his throat.

“I won’t,” He says, even though he can’t really make that sort of promise.

-

It isn’t until they’re walking back downstairs to the flat that Phil plucks up the courage to ask Dan something.

“Your parents,” He says, slowly, pausing on a higher stair so he’s kind of towering over Dan a little. “Do they-? Do they know about you?”

Dan just looks at him for a moment, wide eyed, the same rabbit in the headlights look he’d had on his face when Phil had confronted him about being a vampire.

“They, um. They knew.”

He keeps walking but a little faster, so Phil has to rush to keep up.

“Dan,” Phil says. Somewhere inside he already knows the answer to this question but he feels like he has to ask, like it’s spilling out of him, his voice echoing across the stairwell. “When you say they  _knew_ -“

“They’re dead,” Dan says, abrupt and sudden. Phil stops walking and the silence is deafening. “That’s. They’re dead, and – and I don’t really wanna talk about them, ever, if that’s alright.”

He isn’t even looking at Phil when he speaks. Phil’s stuck staring at the line of his shoulders and the pale skin of the back of his neck, feeling lost and powerless, a lump rising in his throat.

“Ok,” Phil says, quietly. “Ok.”

All he feels like he can do is move to the step next to Dan so he can take his hand and squeeze it tightly. When he looks over at Dan he’s staring determinedly away, but there’s something about the line of his jaw that makes Phil sure he’s clenching his teeth.

They don’t keep walking until Dan squeezes Phil’s hand back, holding on so tightly, like he’s afraid to let go for anything.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GUYS, THIS IS 9K. I'm just opening with that before I get down to the apologies for it taking so long, ok, it's 9K
> 
> Anyway, I'm so sorry this took literally half my life to complete. I've been feeling really uninspired lately and I don't know why, so honestly writing this was like pulling teeth at times. I've been procrastinating and avoiding it and feeling like shit, but it's HERE, it's DONE. There are definite errors because I honestly can't read through it for mistakes now, my brain has officially gone to bed already omg. I did the usual Word spelling and grammar check but if you notice anything else that's glaringly off I'm so so sorry, I'll be back to fix it asap
> 
> HUGE SHOUT OUT to everyone who's left kudos and commented!!!! thank you all so much! I know I'm useless at getting back to comments lately bc I left it too long and now I have a backlog but please know that a) i'm gonna try and reply to you all soon, I promise and b) THANK YOU SO SO MUCH. Seriously, whenever I get an email and it's about a comment or kudos it makes me so unbelievably happy, you don't understand, and those emails really got me through the worst of this writing slump. Thank you all <3
> 
> ALSO (damn this note is longer than the chapter vfjdnk) I'm going to France next week!! Which, er, is bad for this fic I'm sorry...but I'm only away for two weeks, and hopefully this can sweeten the deal? I mean probably not but I'm hoping so
> 
> the biggest love to palephantom and leblonde, what would I do without you guys? <3 shout out to the glorious forestplanet for being my wonderful defender and getting me hooked on a music video (thank you chuck <3)
> 
> anyway on with the vamp angst let's go

Phil’s on the roof of his apartment building with Dan and the city’s on fire around them.

Feeling abject and disconnected, Phil watches the guard tower of the blue zone crack and splinter, metal groaning in the heat.

“It’s beautiful,” Dan says.

Something about the way he says it – about the fact that he said it at all – reminds Phil of something he can’t recall. They’re sitting on the very edge of the building again and the flames are lapping at their toes like ocean waves. Phil can’t feel any heat except from where Dan’s holding his hand tightly, the stroke of his thumb sending spikes of warmth all the way up Phil’s arm.

And then something shifts, a smell of burning wood and screams brought over on the wind. Suddenly it’s not the city burning all around them, it’s PJ’s village. Phil knows that with complete and utter certainty even though he doesn’t know what PJ’s village looked like – the blue zone’s gone, replaced by a handful of cottages with gaping broken windows, flames licking at old timbers and trees breaking apart with cracks that sound like gunshots.

Phil scrambles to his feet, heart beating hard and painful in his chest.

“We have to help Peej,” He tells Dan. The panic in his chest feels bigger than he is, the weight of it crushing his lungs and making it impossible to breathe. Dan’s just sitting there _looking_ at him. “We have to – he’s down there, we have to get him out-“

Dan looks at him with dark, unfeeling eyes.

“PJ’s gone.”

It’s not his voice that comes out of his mouth but Phil’s own, sounding seconds away from tears. “PJ’s gone,” He says again in his stolen voice. “He’s gone.”

-

Phil wakes with a start and a wheeze, heart thudding so hard he feels like his skin’s pulsing. He flails around in the bedcovers, panting, and when he manages to kick them off he lies there for a second, catching his breath and convincing himself that everything’s fine.

“Jesus,” He says, involuntarily, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes. “ _Jesus_.”

There’s a soft knock at the door. Phil lets his hands drop and looks up at the ceiling, greyish in the dim light, a strip of sunlight creeping around the top of his blackout curtains.

“Yeah?” He says.

“Er. Is everything ok?”

It’s Dan.

“Yeah,” Phil says, sitting up and reaching for his glasses. “Yeah, you can – you can come in, don’t worry.”

The door creaks open. Dan’s standing there in his pyjamas – the same tracksuit pants and oversized shirt he always wears, like he has to be as covered up as possible at all times. Phil can relate.

The way he hovers there for a moment, looking soft and sleepy, his hair sticking up in the back, makes Phil feel like his insides are aching, like his guts have been replaced by bruises.

“I, um. I made you coffee,” Dan says, uncertainly.

Phil doesn’t say anything until Dan moves over and hands him the cup. There’s sugar crusted to the side of the mug, like Dan threw it in in a hurry. When Phil takes a grateful sip, it’s to find that it tastes bitter – he mustn’t have stirred it.

“Sorry,” Dan says – Phil’s poker face mustn’t be as good as he thinks it is. “I, er.” He scratches the back of his head. “I might’ve, um. Look, your heart was going all over the place, and, er, it woke me up and I thought something was wrong so I – I made you a coffee as an excuse so I could come in and check on you, and now you’re fine and I feel like a creepy idiot, so – good morning.”

Phil laughs. He can’t help it. It’s just the way Dan’s hovering bashfully by the bed, avoiding Phil’s eye, and the fact that he brought Phil coffee and he was worried. It’s like all the warmth he feels when he looks at Dan chases away the remnants of the nightmare.

“Yeah, it’s hilarious,” Dan says, darkly, but Phil can tell he knows the laughter isn’t mean, because his mouth twitches like he’s forcing back a smile. “Everything’s ok, though, right?”

“It is now,” Phil says without thinking, the words just falling out of his mouth. His stomach drops as soon as he’s finished speaking but it’s worth it for the look on Dan’s face, the smile he tries to hide behind his hand. “I just. Bad dream. You can, like…” He gestures at the rumpled bedcovers, unthinking, until Dan gives him this look that’s all eyebrows and he feels the heat rise in his face, all coherent words turning into mortified spluttering noises. “You can sit down, you can sit down-“

Dan grins and sits down right by Phil’s feet.

“I’m messing with you,” He says, laughing a little at whatever he sees on Phil’s face.

“Yeah, I know,” Phil says, trying to act like he isn’t only drinking coffee just to hide his own smile. “Is PJ in?”

Dan shakes his head.

“He left a note on the fridge, something about painting someone’s fence.”

“Ah, ok,” Phil says, vaguely remembering PJ mentioning something about it the previous day. By virtue of PJ’s charm with pensioners he’s spent the last few weeks doing odd jobs for all of the old ladies in the surrounding area – odd jobs that mostly seem to involve the aforementioned old ladies feeding PJ a ton of cake and making searching comments about his love life.

“…and part of me really wants to be like _, actually, Mrs Calder, I did have someone once but then, like, I got farmed by a bunch of vamps and by the time I got out of there she_ – she, well.” He’d faltered when he’d realised that Phil was paying attention, watching him from by the kitchen sink. “Yeah, never mind.”

“I’d do that if I was, like, remotely, you know, attractive in any way,” Dan says, pulling Phil out of his thoughts. “Like, what Peej does – what?” He adds, catching sight of the look on Phil’s face.

“You know, digging for compliments makes you less pretty,” Phil lies, barely keeping a straight face as he says it and laughing as soon as Dan slaps him on the leg through the duvet. “I’m kidding, I’m kidding! But seriously Dan. You could totally do what Peej does. You’re like,” He gestures vaguely in Dan’s direction. “You know. Shut up, you thought I had a heart problem because I was all, like,” He waves his hand again. “Caught up, you know? Not – not just in, like, you know, I’m not – your entire self, y’know, like, your personality too. Ugh, shut up.” He finishes, wishing he’d never even started rambling.

Dan looks a little taken aback for a moment, then he smiles.

“I mean, if you wanna pay me to paint a fence, that’ll really, like, give me that edge on Peej,” He says.

Phil rolls his eyes.

“Yeah, laugh it up,” He says, smiling himself. “You can make me another coffee and I’ll think about paying you for it.”

Dan takes his empty mug and hops off the bed, lingering at the side again for a second.

“You know, like – me too,” He says, after a moment, tapping his fingernails against the rim of the mug. “Like. I’m caught up too. I don’t want you to, like, think it’s just you.”

“Ok,” Phil says, feeling too hot all of a sudden.

“Ok,” Dan says, and hurries out of the room without looking at him. Phil just sits there for a moment in bed, listening to Dan pottering around in the kitchen and smiling so hard that his face sort of hurts.

-

Phil thinks that these past few weeks with Dan and PJ have been some of the happiest he’s had in a long time.

Not that it’s all happy all the time. Knowing that Dan’s parents are dead had weighed on Phil’s mind for longer than he’d care to admit, over those first few days. He’d even called his own parents, privately on the way back from Tesco, just to make sure they were all ok. His mum had sounded surprised but also touched, which had made him feel terrible for not calling home more often.

For one long moment he’d wanted more than anything to be back there in his childhood home. He wanted to be close enough that she could touch his hair the way she used to when he was a little kid while his dad offered to make everyone a cup of tea. Then he’d been back to himself, standing awkwardly in the car park at Tesco, feeling incredibly guilty that he could go and see his parents if he wanted – he could drop everything and get a train back up North – but Dan couldn’t do the same, no matter how much he wanted to.

It’s like Dan’s loss was another presence in their flat at first, another person that Phil had been unsure of how to behave around. He still feels like that some days, part of him always wanting to comfort Dan, to do something with the awkward soup of feelings he has sloshing around inside him. He just has to force it down. The last thing he wants to do is to make Dan regret telling him things because he’s an idiot who can’t stop thinking about them and worrying.

He wishes he could be more like PJ sometimes, because it seems like he always knows the right thing to do. Like when Dan had first moved in – he’d gone out for a few hours and come back with potted plants for everyone.

“I got this,” He’d said, holding up a battered looking bag of crocus bulbs. “And then here, this one’s yours,” He’d added, handing Phil a potted gardenia. “And then this one’s for you, Dan.”

Dan’s plant is a slightly bent looking, unrecognisable plant whose flower has yet to bloom.

“It’s a yellow tulip,” PJ had said, helpfully. “Or it will be. And you can’t refuse it ‘cause it’s a gift and I got Phil one too!” He added in a rush, when Dan opened his mouth to speak.

“I was gonna say thank you,” Dan had said, a little disgruntled, and Phil had laughed and given PJ a half hug with the gardenia between them.

It wasn’t until later on, when Phil was in his uniform and ready to go to work, that he lingered in Dan’s doorway for a moment before knocking. Dan’s door had been ajar, and thanks to that Phil had seen him arranging the tulip on the windowsill in his room, giving the leaves these gentle little touches and turning it this way and that, like he was trying to figure out which angle would get it the most sunlight. Apparently satisfied, he’d moved back a little and just looked at it for a moment.

Phil had to creep away down the hall to the kitchen because it felt like he was feeling so much all at once that he might choke.

-

That’s the thing about living with Dan, really. Phil thought he knew him enough to begin with, but _living_ with him is entirely different.

It means stripping back the layers of mystery he's wrapped himself in. It means ignoring PJ when he gives Phil meaningful looks when Dan reaches out a cold hand to brush something out of Phil's hair and lets his fingers linger.

It means seeing him when he’s first woken up in the morning and his face is pillow-creased and pale, yawning as he shuffles into the kitchen. It means eating together with him and PJ, the three of them slouched in the living room with their plates, watching TV.

It means being able to look over and watch, quiet, while Dan and PJ play a game together, the pair of them hunched over controllers and hissing stupid insults at each other. It means ignoring the tug of longing in his chest when he sees Dan smile or bite his lip in concentration, or hum under his breath when he’s stirring a pan on the stove.

“Ask him to go for coffee,” PJ murmurs in his ear, making him jump and nearly yelp in surprise. It’s a balmy May evening, and Phil’s been putting off getting showered and dressed for work for as long as possible because he knows his scratchy work uniform is just gonna make him feel sweaty and disgusting the moment he puts it on.

Also he’s watching Dan, absent-mindedly cleaning things in the kitchen and singing a little off-key to a song on the radio. He thought he’d been subtle – he hadn’t even gone over to the kitchen door like he’d wanted, just stayed on the sofa and looked over the back, catching snatches of Dan’s bright voice and the way he laughs at himself when he walks to and fro past the doorway.

“I dunno what you mean,” Phil says, deciding to play dumb and turning back to the book that’s been lying, ignored, in his lap for the past twenty minutes.

“Coffee,” PJ says, tapping a marker against the spine of his sketchbook. “You know, the thing with the beans that the pair of you drink a ton of. Only, like, outside the flat. Together. On your own.”

Phil shakes his head automatically, glancing nervously back at Dan. He hasn’t turned their way or reacted in any way, but Phil knows that his hearing is crystal clear – crystal clear enough to be able to hear Phil’s heartbeat from rooms away – so this entire conversation is a terrible idea.

Only PJ clearly never got the memo about advanced vampire hearing, because he persists.

“If you ask him for coffee it’s not, like…it’s not a sure thing, you know? Like – you’re not laying it all out there, not really, ‘cause – well, he might just assume it’s coffee, which is fine, and then if you panic you can-“

“Peej,” Phil says, his face burning. “It’s. This is totally out of nowhere, I’m.” He flaps a hand, vaguely. “Can we just not, please.”

“Ok,” PJ says. “I’ll just go back to pretending you’re not staring at him through the door-“

“ _PJ_ -“

“Did someone say coffee?” Dan says, appearing suddenly on the threshold of the living room with three mugs precariously balanced in his hands. Phil kind of wants to stop existing right then, because there’s something about Dan’s face when his eyes alight on Phil’s that makes him certain he overheard the entire conversation.

“Thanks,” He says, feeling flustered as he accepts the coffee.

-

“So,” Dan says. It’s an uncomfortably warm evening, and Phil’s jacket is shoved into his bag. Despite the heat the air smells fresh and bright – it’d rained earlier, and everything smells promisingly damp and alive. “So, um.”

“You heard that entire thing, didn’t you,” Phil says, trying to get it out of the way, like ripping off a plaster. They look at each other and there’s a moment of blankness before they both laugh, a little nervously. “Sorry. I knew you did.”

“I dunno, I thought my clueless acting was pretty great,” Dan teases, smiling. It fades a little and he adds, “You were watching me?”

“I,” Phil hadn’t been expecting him to say that, and he feels a little called out, a little exposed. “I mean. Maybe I was looking over a bit.” He swallows because Dan’s just looking at him. “You were singing, I dunno. I like hearing you sing.”

Dan laughs.

“Shut up,” He says. “I can’t sing for shit.”

“Yeah, well,” Phil says, nudging him, somehow feeling a thousand times less awkward and embarrassed than he did a moment ago. “I still like hearing you, so.”

“Just means we’re both tone deaf,” Dan says, after a moment’s pause. “Hey!” He adds, when Phil makes a half-hearted swipe at the back of his head.

They laugh for a moment, nudging into each other as they walk along the pavement, Phil’s bare arm brushing Dan’s jacket sleeve.

“Listen,” Phil says after a moment. “About what PJ said about, like, coffee…I. Um. I don’t want you to think that was me, like, not _wanting_ to, er, get coffee with you, it was just…I get the feeling you don’t want to, and. I dunno, that’s it, I wouldn’t ever like, like, push for something that you didn’t want. Just – just so you know.”

He’s staring down hard at the pavement ahead, wondering if anything he just said made the slightest bit of sense. It’s not that he doesn’t think Dan doesn’t like him – aside from those private 4am moments when he thinks that maybe Dan actually hates him and Phil just has him backed into a corner. No, it’s just that Dan seems to be perfectly happy for the two of them to go along as they are – awkwardly, tantalisingly friends-but-not-friends.

“It’s not that I don’t want to,” Dan says, slowly. When Phil sneaks a look at him out of the corner of his eye he has his hands in his pockets and his chin ducked. “It’s.” He slows to a stop in the middle of the pavement, turning to face Phil with a sigh. “If you ever wanted to just go for coffee that’d be fine, but – I don’t think I could trust myself for it to be just coffee. With you.” He swallows and Phil’s eyes flicker to the movement in his pale throat.

“You don’t have to trust yourself,” Phil blurts out, stupidly. Feeling himself get hot, he adds quickly, “I mean, like. We’re both adults, and – and.” He swallows, his throat tight. “I. You know how I feel, and. And if you feel the same way, then-“

“Then I’m still dead,” Dan interrupts, with a shrug. “That’s it.” And he taps his sternum hard, right over where his heart isn’t beating.

There are thousands of things Phil could say to that. He could tell Dan that just being dead these days doesn’t mean his life is over, but there’s something pained about his expression, something cold, and Phil knows with startling clarity that whatever weak platitudes he’d try to console Dan with would mean nothing – that Phil has no idea what Dan’s seen, or what Dan’s done.

He has no idea what it feels like to die.

“I know that I…I can’t ever understand,” Phil says, slowly, because he wants to get this right. “But – but you know I don’t care. You’re just _Dan_ , and I don’t care.”

“I know,” Dan says. He still looks sad, and that’s all wrong. “I’m just. I can’t.”

Phil blinks, the rejection smarting even though he’d been sure it’d happen.

“That’s fine,” He says, feeling like someone else is speaking with his voice.

“It’s not,” Dan says, looking wretched. “I can tell it’s not, Phil.”

“It’s _fine_ ,” Phil insists, and he pulls Dan in for a hug without even thinking about it.

Dan hugs him back tightly, the pair of them standing stranded in the middle of the pavement, evening shoppers and commuters milling past them.

“Whatever makes you comfortable is fine with me,” Phil says, turning his face ‘til his cheek touches Dan’s. “Whatever you want or – or don’t want, that’s fine with me, don’t worry.” And he hugs him so tightly he feels like his lungs might burst.

“It’s not that I don’t – that I don’t want to,” Dan says, his voice muffled and small. “Just – it’s not that, ok?”

“Ok,” Phil says. He closes his eyes for a second, his chest aching a little for Dan.

 _I’m still dead_ , he’d said, like if they’d somehow met when Dan was alive everything would be fine. Not for the first time, Phil feels like the knowledge of Dan’s death hurts, like there’s a wound somewhere inside him, somewhere deep in his ribcage, the knowledge that Dan – soft, wonderful Dan, whose smile is beautiful and whose jokes make Phil laugh ‘til he thinks he might cry – had to die.

Phil squeezes his eyes shut tighter, feeling like something large is trying to force its way up his throat. He touches a hand to the back of Dan’s head, feeling how soft his hair is for a second before they let each other go, passing early evening shoppers giving them odd side glances.

“Sorry,” Dan says, avoiding his eye for a second.

“Nothing to be sorry for,” Phil says, even though he’d been about to pointlessly apologize himself. “Seriously, I’m. Everything’s good, everything’s…Everything’s ok.”

“Ok,” Dan says, looking uncertain.

They walk the rest of the way to the library in silence, with Phil’s arm hooked through Dan’s.

-

A few days later, Dan manages to convince Phil to fight him.

“Dan,” Phil says, initially, when he first suggests it. He’s just spent an hour teaching PJ how to block and he thinks some of the places where PJ actually landed hits are gonna be dark with bruises unless he goes downstairs and puts ice on his arms.

“I’m serious!”

“And I’m tired,” Phil says, wiping his forehead with the towel he’d brought up to the rooftop with him. “That’s, like, an imbalanced combat, right there. First rule of fight club-“

“Shut up,” Dan says, rolling his eyes, and the pair of them laugh. “Come on, please. You’re not always gonna be well rested when you fight a vamp, right?”

“Now you sound like my mum,” Phil grumbles, because he knows he’s about to fall for this.

Dan knows too, because he grins wide and adopts some weird fighting stance that looks sort of like all of the positions Phil’s mum told him never to stand in when on the defensive. He guesses the rules are different when you’re a vamp.

And yeah, he could fight Dan – he probably will fight Dan – but something about all of this is ringing alarm bells inside him, so loud his whole body should be juddering with the noise.

“Dan.”

“What?”

Phil could lie, but he feels like him and Dan have reached an understanding where their feelings are concerned. There’s no point in lying about something they’re both well aware of.

“I’ve seen this movie. And you’ve seen this movie. Everyone’s seen it,” Phil says. When Dan just frowns a little, tilting his head in confusion, he feels himself flush. “Like, the protagonists fight, and then, like, there’s this _tension_ , and, like, they end up falling over together, like, _on_ each other, ‘cause like – whatever, and then-“

“And then one of them gets his back all cut up,” Dan says. “You literally just described your first training session with Peej.”

“I don’t mean it like that,” Phil says, exasperated. Dan’s already snickering behind his hoodie sleeve. “Shut up. You know what I meant.”

“Yeah, I know,” Dan says. He doesn’t smile, which is disconcerting, but then he raises his eyebrows. “So if you fall on me in some dramatic way I’m gonna assume it was on purpose now, just saying.”

Phil thinks if he goes any redder some distant satellite is gonna register his face as a small fire on a rooftop.

“I didn’t say I was gonna fight you.”

“Fight me,” Dan says. Without him smiling it just makes Phil feel hot and weird – just makes him remember all of Dan’s weird compliments about how much he enjoys watching Phil fight, and now he wants Phil to fight him? “It’s good practice. No weapons and the first person to keep the other immobile for a count of five?”

“Fine,” Phil says, and rolls up his sleeves.

-

It’s not one of those movie fights. Phil feels awkward at first, worrying about Dan looking at him – worrying about being sweaty and gross in front of him – but then it quickly turns out that Dan is unexpectedly competitive and he’s taking it pretty seriously.

“This is unbalanced,” Phil tells him, ducking Dan’s hand when it comes flying towards his face. “You’re, like, using all your undead shit-“

“You’re meant to be an expert at dealing with _undead shit_ ,” Dan points out, turning into a kick that’s aimed at Phil’s shoulder.

Instinct tells Phil to dive out of the way but instead he catches hold of Dan’s ankle, his arm taking the impact of the kick in a painful judder that feels like he elbowed the wall and his funny bone’s burning. It’s worth it for the look of surprise on Dan’s face, and he laughs. That gives Dan enough time to kick his way out of Phil’s grip, aiming for his face. Phil just darts out of the way, forearms up to protect his face, hands clenched into fists.

“That’s a dirty move,” Dan says, somehow getting out of the way of a weak punch of Phil’s at the last minute.

Phil laughs again, half-heartedly aiming another punch.

“Used to use it on my brother all the time,” He says. “He hated it too.”

Dan grins as he ducks another swipe of Phil’s arm.

“You’re not trying.”

“I am!” Phil says. Dan catches hold of his arm mid swing and he just stops, posture relaxing, like one touch from Dan bleeds all of the tension out of him. “I don’t wanna hurt you. It’s meant to be a practice fight, not us actually beating the shit out of each other.”

“I’d never beat the shit out of you,” Dan says. Phil’s dimly aware of the fact that he’s breathing a little fast from the fight. Dan’s just calm and cool, his fingers a little cold against Phil’s skin. “It’s just practice.”

“Consider me practiced then,” Phil says, not attempting to move away. His hair’s damp and sticking to his already sweaty forehead, and he uses his free hand to push it off his face. “Ugh.”

Awkwardly, Dan loosens his grip on Phil’s arm but leaves his hand there, resting against the crook of Phil’s elbow.

“My right arm’s weak,” He tells Phil. “I broke it about a year ago and even with all the vamp shit, it – it’s not the same as it used to be.”

“Right,” Phil says, nonplussed. “Does it hurt? I could – I dunno.” He pauses with his hand halfway to Dan’s right arm.

“Not usually, no,” Dan says.

Phil wonders why he’s telling him this – why he’s being so serious about it, why he’s still touching Phil’s arm, eyes darting here and there across Phil’s gross sweaty face and making him feel nervous. Then the penny drops.

“You’re trying to teach me how to fight you.”

“I,” Dan sighs and looks away. “I never said that.”

“No, but you’re telling me about your weaknesses and trying to get me to _attack_ you, that’s-“

“I wasn’t trying to get you to attack me,” Dan says. It’s his most reasonable voice, and Phil turns away and walks a little bit because he doesn’t want to look at him for a second. “Look, there’s more than a chance that you might have to fight me and – and I want you to be prepared, I don’t want it to be a surprise.”

“More than a chance,” Phil repeats, turning to look at Dan. “You said you didn’t know where the vamp who killed you was.”

“I don’t!” Dan says, flailing his arms exasperatedly like they’re disagreeing on what TV show to watch. “That’s why it’s so important, sh-they could be anywhere, and – and just in case, I want you to be ready.”

Phil doesn’t know what to say to that. He thinks of his fears from when Dan was first moving in – his awful thoughts of a mindless version of Dan trying to kill him, and him having to fend him off. He could just dismiss it as a dark daydream before but now Dan’s bringing it up so calmly, and it’s really hitting home that he might have to do it one day.

“I wouldn’t kill you,” He says, quietly, not even really meaning to. It’s like all of his thoughts and the way his stomach hurts thinking about this makes the words just comes spilling out of his mouth without him even consciously deciding to speak. “I’d – I’d take you to a response centre, I wouldn’t-“

“No,” Dan says, face closing off. “No, Phil, you’d have to finish the job. I can’t end up in one of those places like – like a lab rat, I can’t, you’d have to do it.”

Phil swallows and shakes his head, eyes shut tight for a second.

“Can we not talk about this?” He says. “I – I’m not killing you right now, am I?”

“No,” Dan says. He reaches out and touches Phil’s arm again. “Sorry. I just. I worry about it, that’s all. I want you to be safe.”

Phil wants to say _I want you to be safe too_ , but he feels like the words are stuck in his throat. Instead he puts his other hand over Dan’s on his arm, squeezing his fingers tightly.

“We’re both gonna be fine,” He says instead, his voice low, like he can will it to be true. “We’ll have each other’s backs, alright?”

“That’s the plan, yeah,” Dan says, with a tiny smile.

-

He regrets the extra fight session later when he ends up trailing around the library like a zombie. Dan keeps guiltily bringing him coffee from the machine in the back room, but it doesn’t really do anything to alleviate the feeling that he’s been hit by a truck.

“Not long to go now,” He says every time, rubbing Phil’s back like that’ll help keep him awake. “You’re not in tomorrow, remember?”

“I think I’m gonna die.”

“You’re not gonna die,” Dan says encouragingly, taking the stack of books off Phil and handing him his latest coffee. “I’ll put these back, you go back to the desk while Di’s upstairs.”

Phil really doesn’t think sitting down will help him at all – if anything it’s bound to make everything worse – but he shuffles back to the desk all the same. It’s around four, which means he only has just over an hour of his shift to go, but the last hour is always somehow the worst one. And that’s on a normal shift, never mind one where he feels like he’s dead on his feet.

Wondering if the phrase dead on your feet is offensive to Dan keeps him awake for long enough to drink his coffee, but as soon as he puts his empty cup down on the library desk he finds himself resting his chin on his hand. It’s a mistake – he’s at that point where he keeps half nodding off and every time he does his heart comes to this screaming halt in his chest, like his body’s shocked at him for trying to rest at such an inappropriate time.

“Huh,” Dan says, after Phil explains how it feels to him when he comes back over to the desk. “I mean, I remember being like that. Like, in college and stuff. Never thought it’d _sound_ so weird. It’s like,” He makes a few strange wet noises and then a sound like radio static.

Phil laughs, tired and nearing hysteria levels.

“What the hell was that? Hearts don’t sound like that.”

“They do!” Dan insists. “All like, wet and shit.” When Phil pulls a face, he adds, “Hey, it’s you making the noise, not me.”

“Yeah, sorry,” Phil says, sleepily, yawning so hard his eyes water. “I’ll try and stop.”

“Don’t you dare,” Dan says, so quietly Phil thinks he might’ve misheard. “I’ll get you some coffee.”

He ruffles Phil’s hair as he stands up and it takes everything in Phil’s stupid exhausted state not to push up into the touch like a cat. He smiles when Dan shoots him a warm look over his shoulder before he disappears into the back room, where the photocopiers and the shitty old coffee machine are, and then spins around to face the library.

He should at least look like he’s doing his job, he thinks, rather than sitting here nodding off and thinking about Dan too much.

He’s nearly almost asleep again when someone approaches the desk, someone with white-blonde hair who looks like she hasn’t slept in days. Phil knows how she feels.

“Hi,” He says, trying to look as alert as possible. “D’you want to take a book out?”

She shakes her head.

“I, er. You’re Phil, right?”

Wariness wakes Phil up a little more. He leans forwards, chair creaking under him.

“Yeah,” He says, slowly. “Why?”

For a moment the girl just blinks, a hand with the most bitten fingernails Phil’s ever seen covering her mouth for a moment.

“I wasn’t gonna do this,” She says, quietly – so quietly that Phil thinks she’s just talking to herself for a moment. “I – everyone told me I shouldn’t, and.” She shakes her head like she’s shaking off a fly, then looks at him, taking her hand away from her mouth. “I’m Penny.”

“Ok,” Phil says, slowly. “It’s, er. Nice to meet you?”

Penny just looks at him for a moment, frowning a little.

“You knew Violet,” She says, eventually, and Phil’s stomach feels like he unexpectedly went over a big dip on a rollercoaster, because this is _Penny_ , Violet’s Penny, the girl she’d talked about so much.

“I, um. Yeah,” He says. Thinking about Violet makes him think about that last night that he saw her – covered in blood and crying. It makes him think about the guy who had died holding Phil’s hand, and how Violet had been the one who’d torn his throat out.

“Yeah,” Penny agrees. When she next speaks, it’s like the floodgates have been opened, and everything happens very fast. “You must’ve heard about the new law, er, the – the thing about enthrallment? So – so Vi’s getting a retrial, I mean, like, we’re campaigning for her to get a retrial, and – and it’ll take time ‘cause there are so many red class vamps in lock-ups, but – but you’re her only witness.”

Phil’s stomach feels heavy inside him all of a sudden, like it’s full of stones.

“I don’t see how I can help,” He says. “I – she was covered in blood, I saw the guy she killed, I – I was with him when he died.” He shrugs, feeling cold and nauseous. “So, like. If this retrial is to try and say she didn’t kill those people, then I dunno how anything I could say would help because – because she did it.”

“It’s not about saying she didn’t do it,” Penny says. When she raises a hand to push her hair off her face it’s shaking so much she nearly misses entirely. “If you said you had reason to believe she was enthralled when she – when she did it, then. Then they’d let her out, they’d – they’d move her to a better place. I’d be able to see her. She might even get released, I-“

Penny keeps talking, but Phil doesn’t hear, like his head’s been plunged underwater. All he can think of is the way Violet had cried, hadn’t been able to stop crying, and the wet breaths of the man she’d left to die in the dark alone.

She hadn’t been enthralled, if she’d been enthralled she would’ve tried to rip Phil’s throat out too – she wouldn’t have stopped.

A hand touches Phil’s shoulder.

“What’s going on?” Dan asks, setting a mug of coffee down on the library desk in front of Phil and giving Penny a blank look.

There’s something hard about his expression, something unyielding, and Phil thinks maybe it’s just him who notices until Penny blinks, evidently blindsided by his sudden appearance.

“Nothing, it’s fine,” Phil says. “I’m. I can’t lie, Penny, I’m sorry.”

Penny stares at him like he’s a monster.

“But you’re her friend,” She says. “You – the two of you are _friends_ , I don’t-“

“I know, and – and I’m sorry she’s in a lock-up, I’m – I’m sorry it turned out like this, but – I can’t _lie_.” He can feel his face flaring with heat, prickles of discomfort spiking up and down the back of his neck. There’s nothing he hates more than confrontation.

“You know she didn’t mean to do it,” Penny says. “You know how upset she was, it wouldn’t be a lie, not really.”

“I can’t do it,” Phil repeats, feeling stupid and small. “I – she wasn’t enthralled, I’m sorry.”

“But-“

“You heard him,” Dan says, voice low and somehow dangerous. “He isn’t gonna lie.”

“It’s nothing to do with you-“

“I’m just telling you what he said, since you don’t seem to be listening,” Dan says. “She wasn’t enthralled. That’s it.”

“Dan, it’s ok,” Phil says. They look at each other for what feels like a long moment, before Phil turns back to Penny. “I’m really sorry. I can’t – I can’t do it, I’m sorry.”

“Not even to help her,” Penny says, sounding tearful. “Not even to help both of us?”

“It’s not about helping you,” Phil says, feeling wretched. “It’s about – it’s about the truth, I can’t – I can’t say something happened when it didn’t.”

“And it’s not even a lie that makes sense,” Dan points out. “There’s no known cure for enthrallment. Imagine, like, all the press interest if Phil starts chucking around the idea that she got cured. It’s not fair on – on people waiting on a cure for that shit, it’s not fair to give them false hope like that.”

“But – but nobody knows what happened in there,” Penny says, ignoring Dan. Her eyes are wide and fixed on Phil, who feels pinned in place like a butterfly. “F-for all anyone knows she _could’ve_ been enthralled and – and seeing you brought her out of it-“

“Dan’s right,” Phil says, sadly. “I’m sorry, Penny. I really really am, but there’s nothing I can do.”

“No, you _can_ do it,” Penny says, taking a stumbling step back from the desk, her eyes bright with tears. “But you won’t.” She takes a shaky breath in and adds, “What would you do if it was _him_? If he’d done what Vi did?”

“ _He_ has a name,” Dan says, sharply. “And it’s nothing to do with me, _I’m_ not the one who went on a killing spree.”

“What would you do?” Penny repeats, still ignoring Dan. Phil swallows, his throat feeling thick, and can’t keep eye contact with her. “Yeah, exactly. You’d do whatever you could to help him.” She shakes her head, eyes filled with hurt and disdain. “I shouldn’t have come. I shouldn’t-“

And she hurries off, straight out of the library before Phil can even round the library desk, her shoulders hunched like she’s carrying a great weight.

-

“She was right,” Phil says.

It’s just gone seven, daylight pressing insistently against Phil’s blackout curtains. Rather than going straight to sleep like he really should’ve done, Phil had stubbornly made both him and Dan a coffee. This is a routine they’ve fallen into of late, the pair of them sitting with their backs up against Phil’s headboard, drinking coffee and talking until Phil falls asleep. He always wakes up alone with the coffee mug he’d used gone and the duvet pulled high like someone’d tucked him in.

“I mean,” He continues, when Dan just gives him a confused look, the pair of them two tired at this point to hold a proper conversation. “Penny, when she – about us. I’d do anything to help you if you were in Vi’s situation, that’s –“ He yawns and his eyes water. “That’s right, that’s. She’s right.”

“I’m not ever gonna be in Vi’s situation,” Dan says, eyes intent over the rim of his coffee mug. They’re sitting cross legged, half leaning against the headboard and half leaning against each other, Dan’s arm moving against Phil’s when he moves the coffee away from his mouth.

“You don’t know that,” Phil says, quietly. There’s a second when he feels like the words hang in front of his eyes like he wrote them in the air with a sparkler, and he quickly backtracks. “I didn’t mean it like that, I – I trust you, and I know you – I know you’re on the wagon, you’re – I just – I _worry_ , you know?”

Dan just nods, curt and a little bitter.

“You were right the first time,” He says. “You _shouldn’t_ trust me. I _could_ end up like her.”

He sips more coffee and Phil looks at his other hand, adrift on his thigh, and wishes he could shuffle over and hold that hand without having to contort his arm into some impossible position.

“But I wouldn’t want you to do anything for me in that situation. Like.” Dan licks the wetness of coffee off his upper lip, unconsciously. Phil really wishes he wouldn’t do that. “If I’m that far gone that I’m gonna kill that many people, like, hypothetically, then I’d need to be locked up for the safety of…well, everyone.” He shrugs. “That’s it. I wouldn’t want you to lie or anything.”

“But I would,” Phil says. “I mean. If you wanted me to. And even if you didn’t, I – I’d want to help you somehow.” He sighs, his head starting to ache a little, a combination of exhaustion and too much caffeine finally hitting him in a double-punch of discomfort and pain. “Does that make me a hypocrite? For – for not helping Vi?”

Dan shakes his head.

“It’s shitty of her to ask you to even do that,” He says, scowling. “That’s. See, you’re wrong, Phil, ‘cause you’d never treat anyone like that, you’d never – you’d never _guilt_ anyone like that.”

“She’s desperate,” Phil says, feeling even more wretched just thinking about Penny’s face, the set of her shoulders as she’d walked away. “Who knows what I’d – we don’t know.”

He drains the last of his coffee and shimmies around until he’s lying down. The second his head touches the pillow every part of him feels heavy and cumbersome, his eyelids threatening to drift shut. He thinks about Violet – about their long chats in the library, and the way she used to make him laugh. He pictures her in a small cell, alone, curled up on a tiny bunk while he’s here and warm with Dan. The thought sends a spike of pity and guilt through him, enough to make him wince.

“Vi told me they buried her alive, you know,” He says. When he turns his head it touches Dan’s thigh. He has a weird angle of Dan right now, his chin and his nose and everything upside down. “She had to climb out of her grave. Like something out of a horror movie. Like. If she’s in a tiny cell, then – then what if it makes her think of that, and…” He feels queasy, feeling like his insides have twisted themselves into one giant knot.

Dan doesn’t say anything for a long moment. The silence isn’t soft, though – not sleepy like before, and Phil realises what he just said, half-closed eyes snapping open.

“Dan,” He says, his voice sounding helpless and small.

Dan just sighs. There’s a little thunk as he sets his mug down on the other bedside table, then he moves until he’s lying down next to Phil, the mattress creaking and lurching like a ship in a storm.

“Dan,” Phil repeats, when he doesn’t say anything, doesn’t do anything other than blink and look at Phil. Phil doesn’t know what to say or what to do – he feels like there’s a barrier between them all of a sudden, and he has to try and find the right words to say to break it. “Did they-?”

“It’s a common thing,” He says, in this strange, guarded voice.

“Oh God,” Phil says. “Shit, I’m so sorry, I – I didn’t think, I shouldn’t have said anything, I’m-“

“It’s ok,” Dan says. The way his arms are folded around himself is almost like he’s holding something to his chest. “You didn’t know.”

“I’m sorry,” Phil repeats, helplessly, reaching out across the gulf of rumpled bedsheet between them to rest his hand on Dan’s side. He nearly takes his hand away immediately but something about the look on Dan’s face makes him leave it there, anchoring the two of them together when Dan has such a distant look in his eyes.

Dan just shakes his head.

“Not your fault,” He says.

For a moment, Phil thinks Dan won’t talk about it. He tenses his hand where it rests on Dan’s side, trying to be supportive without words, so he knows it’s ok if he doesn’t say anything at all.

Except then he starts talking.

“They, erm. I dunno if you heard, but at one point they started burying people who'd died of suspected vampire attacks in reinforced coffins? Like. Some kind of strong metal. Um. So that if they did come back then they'd be trapped down there. That was before, like, all the legislation and shit, I mean, they'd never get away with that now. But, uh.” Dan forces out a smile that doesn't reach his eyes. “I was one of the unlucky ones, I guess.”

Phil doesn't know what to say. Dan's eyes are blank – he's looking at Phil but looking past him, _through_ him somehow, and Phil can tell he's somewhere far away in his head.

“So you,” Phil's voice is hoarse, and he clears his throat. “Your parents, they-”

Dan shakes his head, and Phil's sentence dies in his throat.

“Sorry,” He says, quietly.

Dan just shakes his head again. There's something about the line of his jaw that makes Phil think he's clenching his teeth tightly.

“Anyway, er,” Dan says, continuing as though Phil hadn't spoken. “I don't know how long it took for me to, erm. I was pretty badly wounded, so I guess – judging by how fast I heal now I'd say it must've been a couple of days, at least. And, erm. I woke up.”

Phil can't even imagine what that must've been like – to wake up in such a small, dark space, trapped, barely able to move one way or another. Maybe he'd yelled for help. Maybe he'd cried. The thought makes Phil's throat feel thick and uncomfortable.

“And you couldn't get out,” He says, quietly.

Dan shakes his head, lips pressed tightly together.

“I, er. I've always been kind of scared of the dark. Still am. You can laugh if you want, I know it's lame, like, creature of the night who's afraid of the dark.” Phil's never felt like laughing less in his life. “So, er, that was shit. But, er, someone dug me up. Some vampire. Maybe she could smell me, I dunno. But I got out and I just – I just left.” He shrugs. “That's it.”

“Jesus,” Phil says, not knowing what else to say. “Jesus, fuck, Dan.”

He shuffles in closer so his wimpy hand-resting on Dan’s side can become a real hug, the pair of them shuffling in close to each other until Dan’s face is tucked against the side of Phil’s neck, the lack of breath against his skin really disconcerting.

They don’t say anything at all. Phil doesn’t know if there is anything to say. He just rubs his hand up and down on Dan’s back and shudders a little at the feeling of Dan’s hand, clenched into a fist in the back of Phil’s t-shirt.

He truly doesn’t mean to fall asleep. He wants to say something comforting, wants to reassure Dan that everything’s alright, but one second he’s formulating the perfect thing to say and the next he’s awake, suddenly, like someone flicking on a light. He’s awake and it’s dark outside, and Dan’s curled around him like a blanket, the pair of them tangled up in each other and the bedcovers.

Dan seems to be breathing in his sleep. Phil can feel it every so often – not as rhythmic or routine as ordinary human breathing, but the occasional tickle of air against the back of Phil’s neck. He’s in that in-between space between being asleep and being awake, and he doesn’t think he’s been this comfortable in a long time.

Dan’s arm is thrown over Phil’s stomach to hold him close, so when Phil breathes out he can feel Dan’s hand shift, pinching the material of his t-shirt between his fingers.

The last thing he thinks before he drifts off again is that he wishes he was more alert so he could enjoy being with Dan like this.

-

The next time he wakes up, it’s because his phone is ringing.

“Shit,” He groans, pressing his face into his pillow for a moment. Dan’s still sprawled out next to him. When he turns his head it’s to find that he’s just lying there, opened mouthed and asleep and somehow still looking wonderful. More wonderful, because he’s in Phil’s bed, and everything smells like him. It feels like an amputation when Phil carefully extricates himself from his clutches to get out of bed.

“Shut the fuck up,” He hisses as he stumbles over to where his phone’s in the pocket of his work trousers, thrown over the back of a chair in the corner. It takes him far too long to get it out, by which time Phil’s wondering both why the person who’s calling hasn’t hung up yet and also how Dan hasn’t been woken up by any of this when Phil’s heartbeat supposedly woke him up a matter of days ago. “Hello?”

He aims to sound alert and cheerful but he thinks he probably just comes across pissed off.

“You forgot, didn’t you,” Bryony says.

“Forgot what?” Phil says, blankly. Then he remembers a conversation they’d had over messenger a while ago about the next vampire representation demonstration and how he’d definitely be there to help out. “Shit. Oh God. I did, I forgot. Listen, I’ll be there in like – just give me fifteen minutes, ok?”

Fifteen minutes is enough time to leave Dan a post-it note stuck to his phone that says _nipped out but won’t be long, can we get pizza later? Xxx_. He throws on whatever clothes he finds first and doesn’t notice that he has a text from PJ until he’s halfway to the town hall.

 _Platonic spooning_ , it says.

Phil ends up laughing out loud, feeling weird and disorientated and not entirely sure what day it is.

 _You’re a CREEP don’t come in my room while I’m asleep omg_ , he sends back, but with a bunch of crying laughing emojis so PJ knows he isn’t really mad.

 _I DIDN’T KNOW THERE WOULD BE PLATONIC SPOONING EXCUSE ME_ , PJ sends back, making him laugh again. He slips his phone back into his pocket as he approaches a group of people in white t-shirts with various slogans on them, Bryony among them. It’s only about 11 according to Phil’s phone, so the demonstration hasn’t really got into full swing yet.

“I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry,” Phil says in a rush when he reaches her, pulling her in for a hug. “I did forget but it’s been an exhausting few days, like – I think I slept through the whole of yesterday, seriously.”

“It’s ok,” Bryony says, warmly. “It’s good to see you.”

She hugs him again, before getting down to business.

“We’ve got some missing persons notices,” She tells him, handing him a stack of A4 and a tape gun. “So, like. If you could stick some up around the square, er. Lampposts and stuff? If anyone tries to stop you just direct them over here. Or hell, hand them one, we can, like, hand them out when we run out of places to put them.”

“Ok,” Phil says. He’d just nodded at everything she’d said, even though he’s pretty sure putting up posters without permission isn’t allowed. It’s not exactly major illegal activity, but it’s probably enough to catch the attention of a community support officer if one comes along.

He picks the traffic lights over by a Starbucks and near a handy bench as his first spot for poster hanging and sets to work. He manages to fit a girl called Becca and a guy called Simon on the first lot of traffic lights, and then he sets to work on the wall of a nightclub across the road from the square, so covered in faded old posters Phil highly doubts anyone would mind a few more.

The notices are all heartfelt pleas from families for their missing loved ones to come home. Phil wonders why some vamps just don’t go back home.

He thinks about his own family, his own parents. He’d definitely go to Martyn if he was a vamp, because he knows for sure Martyn wouldn’t overreact about it. He’d let Phil sleep on his couch like he always does when he visits, and probably still thrash him at most games. As for their parents? Phil’s not so sure.

It’s not like he thinks his mum’d blow his head off the second he stepped through the front door without a heartbeat, he thinks, it’s just – he couldn’t guarantee that she wouldn’t, that’s all.

He’s so caught up in his reverie that the missing persons notice is mostly taped up before the shock of recognition hits him and nearly makes him drop the tape gun on the ground.

 _Daniel James,_ the notice says.

The picture's old, but it's unmistakeably Dan. Phil'd know that smile anywhere.

The rest of the poster floats through Phil's brain as his eyes scan it even though he barely feels like he's seeing it. Words connect with other words in Phil's head – _inaccurate post-mortem, disturbed grave, if anyone's seen our son, please, please contact us.  
  
_ _Please._

Phil doesn't know how long he stares at that tiny picture of Dan. It's such a small photo, but Dan looks so young and carefree. His bright smile catches on Phil's insides like a dozen fish hooks.

Phil's never seen Dan as a particularly sad person. Not really. He has his days, but so does everyone else – and yeah, sometimes he shuts himself up in his room, but usually after an hour or so he doesn't mind Phil's light knock on the door. The number of times they've sat there in the dim light in the middle of the day since Dan moved in, talking in whispers like they might be overheard, their legs touching as they sit side by side on Dan's bed. Dan almost always smiles, always laughs, always seems so light hearted, that seeing even such a small photo – so grainy and indistinct – of Dan being really, truly happy, kind of hits Phil like a punch in the face.

_If anyone’s seen our son, please, please contact us._

Except Dan’s parents are dead. This can’t be a notice from them, they’re dead. It has to be some other family member, some aunt or uncle, someone Dan didn’t think would miss him. It can’t be his parents.

Phil feels like he’s been punched in the face. He feels like all the noise in the world has dimmed beyond the roaring in his ears.

_If anyone’s seen our son_

_our son_

Breath coming in awkward gasps, Phil sets his missing persons notices down on the ground with the gun on top of them. He digs his phone out of his pocket and dials the number on the poster like he’s in a dream.

Someone picks up on the fourth ring.

“Hello?” A voice says. It’s a southern accent, an unfamiliar voice. Phil doesn’t know what he’d been expecting. He doesn’t know if he’d even been expecting anything. “Hello? Is there anyone there?”

“I’m. I just wanted to know who this was,” Phil says, his voice a trembling mess.

“Sorry?”

“Like, who is this, who – you can’t be Dan’s parents, you can’t-“

“Dan,” The woman says, her voice catching a little. “Do you know something about him? Have you seen him?”

And it hits Phil with the force of a speeding train that of course this is Dan’s mum. There's no one else it could be.

She sounds so worried and frantic, while her son lies asleep in Phil’s bed at home, telling everyone that she’s dead.

“Sorry, no,” Phil says, and hangs up, then sits down against the wall next to the stack of missing persons posters, staring at nothing for a long time.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> woah, pabs is still alive??? YES GUYS I AM, I know it's been literally 84 years since I updated but hey, this chapter is approximately 10k words so that has to count for something, right? It's been a wild couple of months in which I met Gerard Way and my laptop died, to name but a few of the things that have been preoccupying me instead of updating. I'm very sorry it's taken so long. Please know that I see all of your comments and kudos and it makes me so so happy - I really want to get back into replying to comments very soon, I've just left it too long like the real idiot I am, but please don't ever think that doesn't mean I don't read and love each one, you're all wonderful <3
> 
> The hugest shoutouts to phantom, nokire and leblonde as ever. You guys are wonderful and talented and honestly?? I am a potato in ur midst, thank u for the cheerleading you're the best <3
> 
> (Shout out to Charlotte who won't ever read this but it's thanks to her this chapter even exists bc she gave me a memory stick in the midst of all my laptop worry and that's what I saved this document to so it didn't disappear into the void. thank u charlotte)
> 
> FINALLY pls pls keep an eye on the warnings, also this is full of mistakes and I'm off to bed GOODNIGHT FRIENDS

_Dan. Do you know something about him? Have you seen him?_

Dan's mum's voice echoes in Phil's head as he walks home, words repeating with each step that pounds against the pavement. Dan's mum, her voice thick with worry. Dan's mum, who Dan had insisted was dead.

_They're dead_ , he'd said. _They're dead and - and I don't really wanna talk about them, ever, if that's alright._

Phil had been heartbroken for him, unable to process such a huge loss, clueless as to what to say or do to make him feel better. And now - now if they were never dead at all...

He has the poster clutched tightly in his fist and he stops for a moment, oddly breathless. The mid afternoon streets are full of people milling around in the hopes of a late lunch, and Phil's shoulder gets bumped a little when he leans against a shuttered shop front and smooths out the poster so he can look at the photo again - the grainy image that pierces something inside Phil's chest, sharp and deadly as a knife.

Dan's smile is so beautiful and carefree that it hurts to look at. He thinks about Dan - Dan, asleep at home, sitting next to him on the sofa, head thrown back and eyes soft with laughter. It's like there are multiple Dans in his mind - this young Dan on the poster, Daniel James, the boy with the bright smile, and the Dan who'd quietly told him about being buried alive last night, the Dan who'd hidden his face in Phil's neck, the Dan who Phil would do anything to help, to make smile again.

And another Dan. Phil doesn't know this one, but this is the Dan who lied to Phil about the death of his parents. This is the Dan who could've lied about anything and everything, if he lied so convincingly about his parents being dead.

_I'm all caught up too. I don't want you to think it's just you..._

When he finally makes it back to the flat he feels as though the morning had been a dream, and sleeping next to Dan was something that had happened to someone else. He still has the poster in his hand when he fumbles with the front door key and lets himself in.

The flat's warm and Phil can hear clattering in the kitchen, the sounds of someone making coffee. The fridge door opens and shuts, and Phil takes his coat off on autopilot, throwing it over the back of the sofa. He feels horribly jittery, like he might throw up. All he wants to do is run right back out of the door - or better yet, rewind this entire day, go back to bed with Dan and text Bryony that he can't help at her demonstration, not today. He wants to be as blissfully ignorant as he had been this morning.

But he can't go back. That tiny picture of Dan is burned into his brain - the carefree kid who'd died, the boy who Phil never met. He's dimly aware of Dan talking to him from the kitchen, something about coffee, but his ears feel like they're full of fog and he can't make out any words. The only thing he's conscious of is the poster in his hand, the paper weird against his sweaty palms.

Dan finally comes to the kitchen door. He's still in his pyjamas, his hair sticking up all over the place, pink pillow creases high on his cheekbone. He looks wide-eyed and worried.

"Phil," He says, and it's only then that Phil realises belatedly that of course he's been able to hear his heart this whole time - hear how fast it's beating, like a tiny bird trapped in his ribcage. "What is it, what's wrong?"

Phil can't say anything. His tongue feels thick in his mouth. He's always hated confrontation, and this is the worst kind. All he can think to do is try and uncrumple the poster from where it's clutched in his damp hand.

"Hey, hey, it's ok," Dan says, walking over to him and putting a comforting hand on his shoulder, taking the paper off him. "Whatever it is, it's..." His voice trails off when he unfolds the poster properly, his hand falling away from Phil.

"I called the number," Phil says, his voice small and unsteady, watching Dan's dumbstruck expression as he stares at the tiny picture of himself. "I think - I think your mum picked up. 'Cause she's not dead, is she? Neither of them are."

Up until that point there'd been a part of him that'd been hoping against hope that there'd been some sort of misunderstanding - that it wasn't Dan's parents who had made the posters, it'd been an aunt or his grandparents, that he hadn't lied about them being dead. Except then Dan looks up from the paper in his hand and he looks devastated, more ghostly pale than Phil's ever seen him. Phil knows then that the worst is true - he'd lied all along.

"They're looking for you, Dan," He says. "They - this whole time they've been looking for you."

Dan shakes his head, looking down at the poster like he can't believe what he's seeing.

"Where did you get this?"

"Does it matter?" Phil says. "Why did you lie? I don't understand."

"Where did you get it?" Dan repeats, insistently, eyes wide and desperate.

Phil looks at him, at how panicked he looks. He doesn't understand what's happening.

"At Bryony's demonstration before," He says, helplessly. "There are a bunch of them up in the square, I-"

Dan just walks away, as though that's the end of their conversation. Phil follows him to his room, watching him throw on a hoodie and then sit on the edge of his bed to pull on some shoes.

"Dan, what're you doing? You can't just go, you - I don't understand."

Dan gets to his feet, patting down his pockets. He has no choice but to look Phil in the eye when he comes over to the door.

"There's nothing to understand," He says, meeting Phil's eye. "I lied, that's it. I'm a liar. Is that what you want me to say?"

"I don't want you to say anything," Phil says, feeling hurt. "I just - I don't get why."

Dan just shakes his head, lips tight.

"I have to - I need to go, can you let me past?"

They look at each other for a long moment. Phil wants to say something - he wants to argue, he wants to be brave enough to be angry about this.

Instead, he just moves to let Dan past. A few seconds later, the front door of the flat closes behind him with a snap.

-

Phil doesn't realise PJ's joined him on the roof until he nudges him as he's sitting down and hands him a travel mug. Phil looks away from the city skyline and blinks, stupidly, before taking the mug. He feels as though he's been reading a book or watching a film, engrossing himself in a story for so long that he's forgotten how to interact with real people.  
  
PJ just tucks his hands between his knees for warmth and doesn't say anything, the late afternoon breeze blowing his hair off his forehead. Phil watches him watching the city and takes a sip from the travel mug.  
  
"Thanks," He says, when it's half empty, setting it down on the roof next to him.  
  
PJ just shrugs, his arm bumping into Phil's.  
  
"I thought maybe you guys were training up here," He says. "Well. Actually I thought maybe you guys were, like. I dunno. I did text."  
  
"He's out," Phil says. "I, um. We had an argument."  
  
He doesn't know how else to say it. They hadn't argued, not really - not the way Phil almost wishes they had. He's been sat here for hours thinking of all the things he could've said, all the ways he could've been brave and bold. But he hadn't been brave, he'd just let Dan leave and not bothered to go after him. The weight of everything he didn't say is making him feel rooted here like the wisps of grass that grow up through the gaps in the concrete.  
  
"I was worried you might've," PJ says, awkwardly. "I, um. Just 'cause nobody was home, and - and last night..."  
  
Phil just shakes his head, thinking of the look on Dan's face right before he'd left the flat. He thinks about the photo of young Dan and buries his head in his hands. After a moment, PJ puts a supportive hand on his shoulder.  
  
"It's not the end of the world," He says, gently. "You - you guys can talk it out, I'm sure. It's, like. I guess it was always gonna happen eventually, and - and you both really care about each other, like, anyone'd tell you that, so-"  
  
"Wait," Phil says, raising his head so he can look at PJ. "Wait, what d'you mean?"  
  
PJ blinks, startled.  
  
"You and Dan," He says. "You - you know." He makes some incomprehensible gesture with his hands. "Is that...not why you guys had an argument?"  
  
"What?" Phil says, utterly befuddled. The penny drops when he realises how pink PJ's gone. "Oh - oh God, Jesus, no. Oh my _God_ , Peej-"  
  
"Well I don't know!" PJ says. "Like - one second you guys are, like, making eyes at each other and then - and then you're sleeping together which is _fine_ , by the way, and I thought maybe it was _just_ sleeping but then just sleeping doesn't, like, require _roof brooding_ , so - I just put two and two together, I dunno."  
  
"That's, no," Phil says, feeling hot. "That's not what happened, Jesus. We just - we had a completely unrelated argument, alright, nothing - nothing to do with anything like that."  
  
"Ok," PJ says. "Is there...? Can I do anything to help?"  
  
Phil smiles, just because PJ's being kind and his forehead's all wrinkly with concern.  
  
"You already did it," He says, quietly, reaching for his coffee again. "Thanks, Peej."  
  
-  
  
Phil's shift that night is miserable without Dan.  
  
He didn't realise how much he'd come to depend on his presence to get through the long hours until he isn't there anymore. There's nobody Phil can turn to and make a joke with, there's nobody there to quickly catch books that fall off the trolley when Phil's organising the upper floor, there's nobody to _talk_ to. Phil loves Di, he really does, but she's not Dan.  
  
Even just missing Dan alone might be bearable, but Phil's so worried all evening that his stomach hurts. He can't stop checking his phone, hoping against hope that he'll have received something, even if it's just a text. He hasn't sent anything himself for fear of being rejected - for fear that whatever he says might scare Dan away forever, and he might just never come home.  
  
Aside from that there's the sick, stupid hope that any moment Dan might arrive - that he might burst into the library with explanations and platitudes. Phil would forgive him on the spot for anything, probably, because he's so twisted up inside with worry he feels like his intestines are made of knots.  
  
But Dan doesn't burst into the library. He doesn't text or call. Phil's so distracted that he accidentally re-shelves a bunch of kids picture books back in the romance section and doesn't notice his mistake until a pink-haired vamp clutching _Twilight_ to her chest points it out.  
  
He just can't stop thinking of Dan. Of their non-argument, of the look on his face when he'd said _I'm a liar, is that what you want me to say_?  
  
Phil doesn't know what he'd wanted. He wanted an explanation. He'd been hurt and upset and - and he didn't know what else Dan had lied about. He still doesn't. And now Dan's gone and he always comes to work with Phil, even though he doesn't have to, and not having him here aches more than Phil ever thought it would.  
  
 _can we talk_ , he sends to Dan at around 2am, when he's already wasted half of his shift staring into space and missing Di's progress reports via walkie talkie.  
  
"Something's up," Di says when Phil returns to the desk after texting to grab a cup of coffee.  
  
"Sorry?" Phil says, looking around. The library's quieter than ever - just a bunch of vamps in studying at the computers and two teenagers sitting on the beanbags upstairs talking about books.   
  
Di just looks at him, gaze calm and assessing, and Phil realises she means something's up with _him_ , not the library.  
  
He shrugs.  
  
"Your friend," She says. "He's not here. Did something happen to him?"  
  
"No," He says. "No, he's - I dunno where he is. We kind of argued, I dunno."  
  
"Hmm," Di says, in a tone that doesn't really reveal what she might be thinking. "You talked to him since?"  
  
Phil shakes his head.  
  
"You tried?"  
  
"I," Phil feels stupid with Di dissecting it all like this, her outsider's perspective making it all sound so easy. "I only just texted, I'll - I'm just waiting to see if he replies."  
  
Di nods, wisely. Phil feels like she could unravel all of his problems in a matter of seconds if he let her, like someone untangling a ball of wool.  
  
As if on cue, his phone buzzes with a call in his pocket. He scrambles to get it out, feeling embarrassed in front of Di.  
  
"It's him, isn't it," She says, knowledgeably, watching him stare at the screen.  
  
"Yeah, yeah, it is," Phil says, and answers. "Dan?"  
  
"I always - always wanna talk to you," Dan says, out of nowhere. "I just - I like hearin' your voice, can you s-speak to me for a little bit?"  
  
"Dan?" Phil says, his heart sinking. Half of the words in that sentence had been slurred almost past the point of recognition. For a human that'd indicate drunkenness - for a vamp it indicates a recent feed. "What are you on about? Where are you?"  
  
"Blue zone," Dan says, quietly. Phil didn't think anything else Dan could say could make him feel worse, but he'd been wrong. He can hear the rhythmic thud of music in the background and the chatter of voices. "I got invited to a party."  
  
"Ok," Phil says, trying to push down the panic that's threatening to rise up and drown him. "Ok, that's - that's fine, are you - are you ok?"  
  
"No," Dan says, and laughs, a breathy crackle down the phone. "No, I - I fucked up, Phil. I really fucked up this time. I can't - I don't even wanna look at you ever again, you'll just hate me."  
  
Phil turns away from Di at that, just so he can let his face fall without her seeing.  
  
"I won't," He says. "I couldn't hate you."  
  
"I do," Dan says. " _I_ hate me."  
  
"Right, ok," Phil says, pressing his spare hand so hard into his eyes that he sees stars. "Where are you? I'll come and find you but you need to tell me where you are."  
  
There's a silence that feels like it stretches on for an age - for so long that Phil feels like he's about to yell when Dan finally speaks again.  
  
"S'a house just off the old high street," He says. "There's - there's a big lorry on its side in the street, it's like. It's like, right in a shop front, you can't miss it. Near there. Are you really gonna come and get me?"  
  
Phil closes his eyes for a second, feeling like he's slipped into a nightmare.  
  
"Yeah," He says, his voice wavering a little. "We have each other's backs, remember?"  
  
When he hangs up and turns back to Di, she gives him one of her soul-searching looks, then waves a hand.  
  
"Go and get him," She says. "I'll cover for you. It's not like you're concentrating enough 'round here anyway."  
  
Phil nods, distractedly, then rushes off in the direction of the library exit, feeling clumsy and stupid. He fumbles with his phone and manages to call PJ.  
  
It's half 2 in the morning, he realises belatedly, when PJ finally picks up.  
  
"I'm so sorry Peej," Phil says, sweaty hand slipping on the phone. He stares out of the glass library door and feels like he's having an out of body experience. "Can you come and get me from work? It's Dan, he's - he's in the blue zone."  
  
The silence down the phone is deafening.  
  
"I'll be there as soon as I can," PJ says, his voice sleep-hoarse.  
  
-  
  
They can't take the main entrance to the zone. Only officially sanctioned vehicles can enter through the gate, but even on foot Phil doesn't want to risk it. If Dan's at an illegal party, the last thing he wants is for there to be some sort of record of him entering the zone via the main gate. Where possible he wants to get in and out without anyone knowing he was ever there, and Dan too for that matter.  
  
The alternative entrance isn't an official thing, it's more of a fact that's discussed in disapproving mutters around the area - the fact that the zone is meant to be highly secure, but sections of the 10 foot fence have fallen into disrepair over the years. Phil can think of at least a handful of news stories of kids using these gaps in the fence to sneak into then zone over the past year alone, daring each other to go beyond the fence, some of them never coming back out again.  
  
So he and PJ drive around the very edge of the blue zone, the sweeping gaze of the observation tower trailing over the derelict houses like a great flashing eye, a prison searchlight in Phil's peripheral vision through the passenger side window. They drive until the houses become more and more abandoned, the front gardens overgrown and sprawling with weeds, and find a gap in the fence next to what used to be an old petrol station.  
  
It's big enough for perhaps a motorbike to fit through but nothing else. The van headlights drench the bent metal slats in yellow light, the path beyond it dark and dangerous looking.

"No," PJ says, when Phil starts patting himself down, making sure he knows where all of his weapons are. Three knives, a can of pepper spray and a couple of tranquiliser shots in his jeans pocket, because he doesn't want to hurt anyone if he doesn't have to. "Phil, no, you can't-"

"Where did the high street used to be?" He asks, ignoring PJ's protests.

"Phil," PJ says, even though he's thumbing through an old A-Z as he speaks. "It's not safe, you can't-"

"It's not safe for Dan either," He says, thinking of the way he'd slurred his words on the phone. "I'll try and get in and out as soon as possible, alright? If you wait here we'll come back and we're gonna have to leave fast, I dunno if anyone'll try and follow us-"

"Jesus fucking Christ," PJ mutters, looking down at the map. "Ok, we're on Marlborough Road, so through there," He gestures at the rusty metal fence. "Used to be Corporation Street. And then, like, at the end of Corporation Street it's Market Street, and then-"

"And then the high street," Phil says, peering over his shoulder at the map too. "Dan said it's near there - there's an overturned lorry, or something, and that's how I'll know."

"This is such a bad idea," PJ says, worriedly. "I should come with you. I - I can fight-"

"I know you can," Phil says, quickly, needing to talk PJ out of this and fast. The last thing he needs is someone else he cares about in danger. "But we're gonna need to get out of here fast, alright? So it's best if - if you stay here."

"The party's at least five minutes away," PJ points out. "I don't see how me waiting out here makes us leave any faster, you're gonna be exposed out there by yourself. And Dan - Dan might be hurt, what if you can't get him back by yourself?"

Phil swallows around the lump in his throat.

"I'll call you," He says, and means it. "I'll call you if I need you."

PJ reaches out and touches Phil's hand, squeezing it tightly.

"Be careful, alright?"

Phil nods, putting his other hand on top of Peej's and squeezing back just as tightly.

"Won't be a minute," He says, voice full of false bravado, and slips out of the van.

He stumbles into the van headlights, touching a hand to the cold metal of the fence before he slips through into the dark. He has a torch in his pocket but if there was one thing his mum ever taught him it was that sometimes torches do more harm than good when it comes to hunting.

"You can see them," He murmurs to himself, like some weird comforting mantra as he edges along what feels like a dirt track. "But they can see you too. Lester Family Hunting 101 right there."

His voice just sounds strange, pitifully small and breathless, and doesn't make him feel much better at all. He blinks hard in the dark, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the light. There's a pale smudge of moonlight in the sky, shrouded in cloud, and the further Phil walks, talking small steps and smelling wet mud and grass all around him, the more he can make out in the gloom. Branches of overgrown trees catch on his sleeves, making him shudder, but eventually the ground feels firmer under his feet and he can see a lamppost, covered in ivy and weeds and graffiti. It's an old street, and when he rounds a corner, feet on comforting tarmac, he sees the vague shapes of abandoned houses, blank-eyed and derelict.

Phil makes his way into what used to be the middle of the road, his knife clutched tightly in his hand, feeling for all the world like he's fallen into a post-apocalyptic horror film. Broken glass crunches under his feet and he moves fast, ready for someone to jump out of the shadows at any moment. He smells smoke on the air, a sort of bonfire smell, and it's only when he rounds a corner, walking straight over a grassy patch that used to be a roundabout, that he sees a house that's on fire, flames blazing in the upper windows. He can hear raised voices and the sounds of things being smashed, and his heart clutches tight in his chest.

He just moves faster. He can't see anyone, but there's no way to get around being noticed in this place - any vamp will hear him coming a mile off by virtue of his still-beating heart, no matter how cool and calm he manages to be.

The heat hits Phil like a wall as he edges past the burning house, the windows belching black smoke that puffs up into the sky. Phil wonders if this happens often - if the people in the guard tower on the other side of the zone see this stuff happening and decide that it's best to do nothing. Phil doesn't know how - he can't shake his own feeling of responsibility, his own sense that he should do something - make sure there's nobody in the house, or put the fire out - but he can hear the yelling getting louder, and a mug flies out of one of the lower windows of the house, smashing about an inch away from Phil's foot.

He keeps moving. Each passing house gets worse and worse - the shouting fades the further he goes into the zone, but there are the unmistakeable signs that vampires and criminals inhabit this place. A front door he passes has thick nails driven deep into the wood, the door itself stained dark with what can only be blood, as though someone was nailed to the door as some kind of punishment, a warning.

Maybe crucifixion-style punishments are commonplace in blue zones. The thought makes him feel sick.

He turns onto what he thinks is Market Street, trying to keep his breathing even and slow, muscles tensed and ready to run at any moment. This street is in an even worse state of disrepair than the last, with overturned skips and bits of rubble littering the road. Overturned cars with no wheels and smashed windows lie abandoned like dead animals, iridescent pools of oil leaking out of them like blood from wounds. It's suspiciously deserted, though - not a sound to be heard now. It's not like Phil expected the blue zone to be a thriving metropolis but the lack of any movement at all is making the hairs on the back of his neck prickle, uncomfortably. He almost wishes it was noisy. Maybe then he wouldn't feel so loud - his noisy breaths and his crunching footsteps and his beating heart, all acting like a giant neon sign that flashes _DINNER HERE_ to any vamp who just so happens to be lurking in the shadows.

He thinks about Dan. He thinks of the boy in the poster, of Dan's mum's voice on the phone. He thinks about his life before Dan - a life of sitting alone in his flat, only really speaking to Di, beating himself up every day for not contacting old friends.

The thought strengthens his resolve, even if it does nothing to calm the erratic thudding of his heart. He has to do this for Dan - he has to get Dan out of here. He walks faster, with renewed purpose, and soon turns down a side street that leads to the old high street. Or at least he hopes it does. He runs, quick and silent, down a space between two houses, and he can see a deserted shopfront up ahead.

The overturned lorry Dan had told him to look out for is there, sure enough, hanging out of what used to be a discount shop. It looks as though it's holding up the building it ploughed into, the entire upper storey sagging, probably about to collapse at any moment. Phil edges around it, too close to the shop fronts for his liking. He can hear thudding now, a noise that might be music, and he listens hard, trying to figure out which way to go.

He nearly stands in the blood. It's a pool on the pavement ahead, glinting unpleasantly in the moonlight. The closer he gets the more obvious it becomes that it's fresh - it's barely had any time to congeal at all. Swallowing nervously, Phil approaches it, looking this way and that as he edges closer. It's not consistent with a feed at all - contrary to popular belief, vamps are hardly ever messy when they feed, not unless they're starving. No, this blood pool is more like a slit throat, a slow bleeding out, even though there's no body around to be seen.

In the dark Phil can't tell if it's human or vampire by look alone. Vampire blood is darker, easily recognisable in good light. Thinking of Dan, he crouches for a second and touches his fingers to the still-warm pool, pressing his fingertips to his tongue for a fraction of a second.

It's human blood. He hates himself for how relieved he is, hurriedly wiping his hand on his trousers. There's enough blood there that whoever it's from is almost certainly dead, and the thought makes him feel nauseous. Whoever killed them didn't even do it for food, it was just for fun - just to watch them bleed to death in the middle of the street.

"Sorry," He murmurs in the dark. "I'm sorry."

The words sound hollow and empty. Phil adjusts his grip on his knife and keeps going, following the thudding sound that's almost certainly music.

It turns out to be coming from a sidestreet. More specifically a townhouse, light and noise spilling out of the broken windows. Phil stands on the pavement opposite, thinking things over. He can hear laughter, people talking - it sounds for all the world like an ordinary, innocent house party, except that Phil knows that if he goes in there and can't find Dan he might not make it out in one piece.

He's outnumbered. His heartbeat alone will be like a wailing siren as soon as he crosses the road and goes through the open front door. All he can count on is the lot of them being too lethargic and feed-happy to move to stop him, but even that isn't likely enough for him to be truly safe. At most he can hope that there are a couple of donors in there so that the presence of another human heartbeat won't be too much of a surprise.

But even then, he thinks, blood running cold with fear, donors are relaxed, their heartbeats slow with a combination of drugs and blood loss. Phil's own heart is beating frantically, letting everyone in the vicinity know that he's defiantly alive and terrified.

He stands and tries to focus, tries to access the separate part of his mind, the part where he can compartmentalise, shove his fear into a corner until it's more convenient to feel. He needs to focus, needs to concentrate.

He has three knives, a can of pepper spray and two tranquiliser shots. Even without those, he can fend off vamps if he has to. He just has to keep his head, find Dan and get out as quickly as possible.

Breathing deeply, slowly, he crosses the road. When he climbs the stairs up to the front door it's to find an empty hallway in front of him, the music and chatter coming from other rooms. There's a flight of stairs immediately to the right of the front door but there are no lights on up there. Phil pauses, looking up, wondering if Dan's up there.

Someone touches his shoulder and before he can even think about it he turns on his heel and slams them up against the opposite wall, his forearm pressed up under their throat and the tip of his knife touching their temple.

"Fuck, fuck fuck," The vamp slurs, pupils huge and dark, fangs extended. "Who ordered the spicy food, what the fuck-"

"I need to know if you've seen someone," Phil says, voice low and dangerous, pressing hard against this guy's throat. He knows it isn't gonna kill him but he wants to make him as uncomfortable as possible.

"I - I haven't seen _anyone_ ," The guy says, stupidly. "I only just got here-"

"He'll be wearing black," Phil says, calmly, ignoring him. "Brown hair, earrings. Ringing any bells?"

The vamp makes a choking noise that's completely unnecessary considering he doesn't actually need to breathe.

"All the snacks are in the kitchen," He wheezes, when Phil presses the tip of his knife just that little bit harder into the side of his head. "Stop, stop, fuck, I didn't even get to eat any yet, what the fuck-"

"His name's Dan," Phil says. "Do you know anyone called Dan?"

"I only just got here!" The vamp insists. "Seriously, I - fucking _hell_ , is there something _wrong_ with you?"

Phil just pushes him harder into the wall and hisses, "I let you go and you don't tell anyone I'm here. Do you understand me?" When the guy doesn't say anything he moves his knife, pressing the side of the blade down into the vamp's cheekbone - not enough to cut but just enough to act as a cold threat against his skin. "Do you understand me?"

"I won't," The guy says. "I won't, I won't, fuck - but they're gonna notice that you're here, they're gonna-"

"You didn't see me," Phil says. "I just want to get in and out of here with my friend. If you don't cause trouble for me I won't cause any for you. Do you understand?"

"Fuck, yeah, I understand, Jesus Christ," The vamp says, pitifully. Phil curls his lip with distaste and lets the guy go. He stands for a moment slumped against the wall, massaging his throat. "Was that really necessary?"

Phil just shrugs and walks off down the hallway. He half expects the vamp to attack when he has his back turned - in fact he's prepared to turn and just shove his knife right through the guy's face if it comes to it - but when he reaches the end of the hall and turns back the guy's gone, and he's alone in the hallway again.

The door on the left hand side of the hallway is ajar, and Phil can see tiles and a sliver of kitchen cupboards through the gap. He can hear talking and laughter - the music seems to be coming from behind the house, rather than inside the house. The back door of the house must be in the kitchen and open, which means most of the vamps are in the back garden. Phil likes that idea less than the idea of going into a room full of vamps - the back garden will be dark, enclosed, more difficult to escape from in a pinch.

He's just weighing up his options when he hears the quiet, gasping noise of someone crying in the kitchen. It's the drive he needs to push the kitchen door open silently and slip through.

The kitchen's big - it's the sort that might once have been nice, with a breakfast island, the sort of kitchen Phil's mum always wanted when he was growing up. It also smells of blood, the scent heavy in the air, even to Phil's human nose. It's strong enough to make him want to gag.

There are two kids cowering by the fridge, clutching each other, tears glinting on their faces.

_All the snacks are in the kitchen_ , that vamp in the hall had said. Phil's eyes catch on the kids' arms and necks and clothes, rusty with dried blood, wounds oozing sluggishly. He wants to go back out there and find that vamp and stick his knife right through his heart.

Instead he crouches down low so he seems less threatening, slipping his knife up his sleeve and holding his hands up.

"It's ok," He says, words barely a breath. "It's ok, I'm not one of them. It's ok."

They can't be older than thirteen or fourteen, makeup smeared around their eyes.

"We didn't mean to," One of them says, tears in their voice. "We - we didn't want to come here, we didn't mean to-"

"It's ok," Phil says, gently. "It's ok, I'm gonna get you out of here." He can't tell how much blood they've lost, but they're still standing up, which is something. All he knows for sure is that he's definitely calling the Undead Response Team as soon as they get Dan and get out of here. A vampire party's one thing but a vampire party with terrified underage donors is another. "Can you tell me your names? I'm Phil."

The laughter floating in from outside gets louder for a moment as though someone's about to come in and the kids make themselves smaller automatically. Phil tenses, flicking his knife out of his sleeve in one smooth movement, but the laughter passes and nobody comes in. He lets out a relieved breath.

"I'm Kit," The kid with blonde hair says, eyes wide and fearful. "This is Lilia, I think - I think they fed on them more, they - their pulse has gone all weird-"

"Lilia," Phil says, gently. "Are you ok? Can you do this for me?"

He makes the ok sign with his hand and holds it up for them to see. Lilia blinks, tears glinting on their cheeks, then raises their hand and makes the sign right back.

"Ok," Phil says. "Ok. We're gonna be ok." His mind's racing - he doesn't know for sure if Dan's here, but he knows that these kids are in significantly more danger than he is right now, and he has to get them out before anything else.

He's considering getting Kit and Lilia back to PJ before he even carries on looking for Dan, reasoning that he could be anywhere, when he hears a painfully familiar voice floating through the back door. The words are slurred and indistinct but it's unmistakeably Dan.

Phil doesn't know how much time they have. Any of the vamps outside could decide they want something to eat at any time, and if he gets discovered in here before he gets the kids out he doesn't know what he'll do.

"Come on," He says, quietly. "Can you walk? We have to get out of here, alright, are you gonna follow me?"

Lilia nods. Kit grabs hold of their hand and holds tight.

"Come on," He repeats, and herds them towards the kitchen door. The hallway is thankfully still deserted, but it feels like it's extended to a million miles long in Phil's absence. He has to get Kit and Lilia out of here, he has to.

"Just walk, ok, keep walking, keep walking," He says, voice low and urgent, walking ahead of them but shielding them as much as he can with his body. "We're almost there, it's ok, keep walking."

Phil's heart's beating so fast he feels like his chest might burst open. They're less than a metre away from the open front door when a vamp stumbles up the stairs and blocks their path.

"I don't remember inviting a hunter to my party," The girl says, voice smooth and deadly. "Which is weird 'cause you'd think I would."

"I don't wanna cause any trouble," Phil says, voice low. He can hear the gasping, terrified breaths of the kids behind him. "I just want to leave, and you're gonna let us."

The vamp laughs.

"I'm gonna _let_ you? You broke into _my_ house and stole _my_ food and I'm just gonna _let you go_?"

"Pretty much," Phil says, trying to be glib when he thinks he might pass out from fear.

"Yeah, no," The vamp says, fangs suddenly long and deadly.

She moves fast but so does Phil, twisting her head away from him, the two of them stumbling over. He scrabbles in his jeans pocket for his tranquiliser shots but he isn't quick enough - she flips him with ease and forces him to the ground, knee digging painfully into his stomach, breath cool and disgusting on his cheek.

"I always wondered what hunters tasted like," She says as she lowers her head to his neck. Phil squirms and fiddles with the shot in his hand and manages to shove it into the side of her neck just as her teeth graze his skin, the pain sharp and intense for a bright second right before the drugs kick in and she passes out, immobile, on top of him.

It takes a few tries to convince his shaking hands to shove her prone form off him and onto the hall floor, at the feet of the kids, who are watching him, frozen with terror.

"You should've run," He says, hoarsely, massaging the side of his neck. A smear of blood comes away on his fingers and he pulls a face. "That's, like, rule number one, ok? You always run. Come on."

They spill out onto the street and Phil starts rushing them back the way he came, fishing his phone out of his pocket with sticky fingers and calling PJ.

"Do you need me?" PJ says, picking up on the first ring. "Is everything ok?"

"Can't explain," Phil says. "I have two kids with me, I'm fine but I need you to come and get them, fast. I'm gonna take them up to Market Street but then I have to back for Dan, I - I had to fight one of them off, they're gonna be expecting me this time."

"Fuck," PJ says. Phil can hear him moving, the slam of the van door. "Fuck, Phil."

"It's ok," Phil says. "Listen, I'm gonna give them the phone, alright? That way you can find them easier." He turns to the kids, who are still holding each other's hands, looking terrified. "Guys, do you wanna talk to my friend PJ? He's gonna come and get you and get you out of the zone, we just have to go up here first. I'll give you the phone and he'll talk to you until he finds you, is that alright?"

Kit blinks at him but Lilia nods.

"Alright," Phil says. "I'll call you back in a second, Peej, alright? I'll just get them up to Market Street, are you moving?"

"I'm moving," PJ says. "I've got a torch, I'll be ok."

"Fuck," Phil says, closing his eyes for a second. He can't get into the dangers of torches right this second. "Alright, see you soon."

When he gets the kids to the overturned lorry he makes sure to give the pool of blood from earlier a wide berth. It really doesn't sit right with him, leaving two kids here by themselves while they wait for PJ - not with that blood there, not when there's a vamp around who'd just kill someone to watch them die, just for the fun of it. Not when every vamp at that party knows how these two kids smell and when they find their friend out cold they're gonna come running before Phil can even blink.

He hands Lilia his pepper spray and Kit a spare knife.

"You shouldn't need them," He says. "My friend's gonna be here soon, ok? I'm gonna call him and he'll come and find you, but if you need them then you can use them. I'm sorry, I just - I went to that house to get my friend, I have to go back for him. Ok?"

He makes the ok sign again, feeling like a fucking idiot, like he's treating them like babies. They both make it back anyway, and he manages a smile.

"Good," He says. His thumb hovers over calling PJ, then he backtracks momentarily, scrolls up to Dan and calls him instead.

The phone seems to ring endlessly, until Phil's jiggling his leg with nerves, ready to gnaw his fingernails down to the quick. When Dan picks up, he's laughing, the sound soft and stupid.

"What, what, _what_? That's a really loud noise, you know that?"

"I need you to leave the party," Phil says, his tone brooking no argument. "You need to get out of there right now."

"No no no no," Dan says, all the words bleeding drunkenly into one another. "No, no, this is where I _belong_ , s'where...where I _deserve_ to be."

"Oh my God," Phil says. "Dan, now isn't the time for your self esteem, alright, you _have_ to get out of there. Please. I'm here, I'm gonna come and get you, but I need you to meet me halfway."

There's silence down the phone line for a moment.

"I'll see you at the door," He says, slowly.

"Good," Phil says, letting out a breath of relief. "I'll be there in less than five minutes."

He hangs up because he doesn't know what else to say, and calls PJ with a hand pressed over his eyes.

"They're by the lorry on Market Street," He says, as soon as PJ answers. "I need you to be fast, ok?"

"I'm literally running," PJ says, breathless, air whooshing down the line. "I'll be there in two seconds."

"Ok, I'll hand them the phone," Phil says. "I'll meet you back at the van, just get them in there and lock the doors, alright?"

"Please be careful," Phil says.

"You too," PJ says. Phil closes his eyes for a second and hands the phone to Kit.

"His name's PJ," Phil explains, quietly. "He's on his way. You guys can keep talking to him, alright? Everything's gonna be ok."

-

True to his word, Dan's in the doorway of the house when Phil gets there, the light shining behind him giving him this weird aura as Phil approaches.

"You did that," He says, belatedly, when Phil goes up the stairs towards him, staring down at the vampire slumped at the bottom of the stairs. "You did that to her."

"Yeah, yeah, she'll be fine," Phil says, dispassionately, taking hold of Dan's wrist. He's leaning heavily against the doorframe like he can't stand up without it - something that proves to be true when he tries to take a step and his legs buckle, leaning all of his weight on Phil's shoulders. "Jesus, fuck. Come on," He says to Dan, who's trying to stroke the sides of Phil's face. "Come _on_ , we have to go."

"You did that," Dan's saying, dreamy sounding and stupid, and Phil shrugs his hands off.

"Dan?" A half-laughing voice says behind them. "Dan, where are you-? What the fuck?"

Phil slips out another knife, unsheathing the blade and holding it up, shoving Dan behind him. Whatever he's been drinking has left him pliant and he just lets himself be pushed behind Phil without resistance.

"We're going," Phil says. "We don't want any trouble, we're just going."

The vamp is dark haired, blood smeared at the corner of his mouth. His face falls when his eyes catch on the vamp at sprawled at the bottom of the stairs.

"Maria? What - what the fuck?"

"Just a tranquiliser, she's fine," Phil says. "I don't want to hurt anyone, I just came for Dan."

He hates the fact that he's trying to reason with these people - the people who had two kids in their kitchen as hors d'oeuvres, like their lives mean nothing.

"Dan," The guy says, eyes narrowed. "You're not really gonna go with this guy?"

"He really is, yeah," Phil says, with a nonchalance that he doesn't feel.

"He came to get me," Dan says, voice soft, like that fact alone is the most amazing thing in the world.

The vamp takes a step closer. He isn't enthralled but Phil can sense the tension in the air, the moment of silence before the inevitable strike. He already has another tranquilliser shot hidden in his sleeve, and he's trying to figure out how fast he could shake it out and stick it in this guy's neck when he speaks.

"Guess you think he's better than us, right?" He says, lip curling a little. At first Phil thinks he's still talking to Dan, but it's Phil he makes eye contact with. "Think you can drag him back home and domesticate him? Like a puppy? That's what you want?"

Phil's been on the receiving end of this particular tactic a thousand times, and he's too old and too tired to fall for it right now.

"We're going," He repeats, calmly. "You - you can get back to your party, but we're not staying."

The vamp just looks at him, his gaze calm and assessing.

" _You're_ the piece of meat he killed Sam for," He says, with the air of someone having a revelation. "That's - that's kind of disappointing, actually. I dunno what I was expecting but it wasn't this. You did _know_ he killed Sam, right?"

"Have a nice evening," Phil says, blankly. His poker face is second to none but his hands are shaking.

"Sam was his flatmate," The vamp continues as Phil takes a careful step backwards, aiming to back them safely down the stairs without taking his eyes off this guy. "So if you're planning on taking him home you should be careful, he doesn't play nice with others for long. If I were you I'd-"

His sentence is cut short by a well thrown tranquiliser. Against all odds it sticks in the back of the guy's hand and he stares down at it, dumbstruck. Phil can barely believe that he managed to throw it so accurately, feeling like he's in a dream as he watches the guy scrabble at the back of his hand before crumpling to the floor in an unconscious heap.

"Thank God for that," He says, feeling hot. "Come on, let's go."

-

Getting Dan back out of the zone is easier said than done. The blood's made him sleepy and useless, feet scraping and stumbling against the ground, his head lolling on Phil's shoulder.

"'S'wearing off," He says. "Can feel it. Gonna feel like shit soon."

"We just have to get to Peej," Phil says. His arm's tight around Dan's waist, keeping him upright. "Come on, it's not far now."

"You smell...really fucking good," Dan says, nose pressed into the side of Phil's neck.

"Right," Phil says, breathless with the effort of supporting Dan's weight. "I'm not a snack, alright? Don't even think about it."

"I wouldn't," Dan says. He pulls away a little then, actually standing up by himself for a moment, a clumsy hand coming up to touch Phil's face. "You know I wouldn't right? You're - you're so - so _important_."

"Ok," Phil says, firmly moving Dan's hand away from him. "And those kids - the ones they had as _snacks_ in that place - they weren't important."

Dan just looks at him for a long moment, pupils blown dark, flush high in his cheeks. For a moment, Phil thinks he might actually get a response out of him that makes sense.

"You came to get me," He says, trying to touch Phil's face again. Phil turns his head away, feeling sick. "You - you _found_ me."

"Yeah," Phil says, a sour taste in his mouth. "Yeah, yep, I did. Come on."

It feels like an age later when the two of them reach the gap in the fence, Phil pushing Dan through first and then following him. He can see the pale faces of the kids through the front windows, and PJ hops out of the van as they approach.

"Is he alright?" PJ asks, clearly alarmed by how much Dan's using Phil to support his weight.

"He's brilliant," Phil says, a little sourly. "He's on cloud nine. Listen, you need to take the kids to the nearest response centre, alright? Say - say you wandered into the zone and found them at the party, tell them where the party is so they can go and get those - those bastards."

"What do you mean?" PJ says. "Why can't you come with me? I - I don't know what to do, I-"

"They're underage," Phil says, hating that he has to spell it out like this. He hears an echo of Penny's voice in his head, the tears in her eyes when she'd said _you’d do whatever you could to help him_. "They - it's an automatic red classification and imprisonment for contact with an underage donor, he - I can't, I'm sorry, I have to make sure he's safe."

PJ stares at him.

"You think he fed on - on _them_?"

"I don't know," Phil says, desperately. "I don't know. I just - I can't, alright? I'm sorry, Peej. I can't leave him and I can't - I can't let that happen to him either."

PJ looks him in the eye for what feels like an endless moment, a lone streetlamp casting weird shadows on his face.

"Get in the back," He says. "I'll drive the pair of you home and then take the kids to the centre, just - it'll have to be quick.

"Thank you," Phil says, and claps him on the shoulder. "Thanks."

-

Nothing feels real when Phil shuts the front door of the flat behind them. There's nothing but the sound of silence and the dripping tap in the kitchen, all the normal early morning sounds. It's all so painfully normal, but images from the day keep flashing behind Phil's eyes.

He thinks of Violet and Penny, and the guilt rises up in his throat like bile. Dan's just leaning against the wall by the door, eyes red and half closed, and that's what spurs Phil to lock the door behind them, leading him to his room.

Dan just stumbles over to his bed and falls forwards onto it. He just lies there, motionless, and Phil estimates he doesn't have long before he shows signs of life. He goes and fetches the empty mop-bucket from the kitchen, a bottle of water and a few bags of blood substitute from the fridge, then takes the whole lot back into Dan's room and shuts the door behind him.

He puts the mop bucket by Dan's bed, the bottle of water on the low table by his bedside, then sits down with the bags of substitute, pressing his back up against the door.

Vampires are docile when they've fed. Phil knows that - every hunter worth their salt knows that. It's when the satiated feeling wears off - that's when they're at their most dangerous. Phil doesn't know how long Dan was clean for but he knows that just one feed is enough to undo the work of years.

Sitting cross-legged means he can feel the weight of his knife pressing against his thigh. He watches Dan's prone form on the bed and wonders how fast he can draw it if he has to.

Dan doesn't make any movements for about an hour. Phil's got his phone resting on his knee, but he hasn't heard anything outside or had any texts off PJ. He sent one of his own, warning Peej that Dan would be coming down and he was keeping an eye on him, but he hadn't got anything back. PJ's silence spoke volumes. Phil's sick with worry over all of it by the time Dan finally twitches and moves so he's lying on his side.

He watches Phil out of half-closed eyes.

"What're you doing?"

Phil swallows.

"You're gonna feel like shit pretty soon," He says. "I'm sorry. I have to - I'm here to help."

"Too late for that," Dan says. His voice is gravelly, like he's been yelling for hours. "You came to get me."

Phil nods, his throat tight.

Dan looks at him for a moment. Phil watches the sluggish blinking of his eyes until he rolls back over onto his back with a pained noise.

"This is the worst part," He says.

"I know," Phil says, even though he has no idea. Even though he can't stop thinking of those kids and their pale, scared faces, tear tracks bright on their cheeks in the dark.

"S'like," Dan lifts an arm, gesturing at the ceiling. "S'like you do it to - to make it all go away, so - so when it comes back that's when it all really - really hurts."

Phil doesn't know what to say to that. He feels like this has been the longest day of his life.

"There were kids at the party," Phil says, trying to keep his voice level. It's hard to reconcile his concern for Dan in this state, sweaty and pale and somehow frail looking, with the revulsion that sits heavy inside him at the thought of those kids - those kids who should've been at home doing homework, or something, not trapped in the blue zone as snacks for a party of drunk vamps.

"I didn't see them," Dan says, his voice hoarse. "I didn't see any kids, I swear to you. I - I wouldn't do that."

"But you fed off _someone_ ," Phil presses. "So if it wasn't them then who was it?"

Dan shakes his head for a moment. Phil feels like he's caught in some awful nightmare that he can't wake up from - he keeps thinking about Kit and Lilia, their pale faces and the smell of blood in the air, and his stomach rolls. Dan lets his hands drop and when he finally looks up at Phil he looks so small and pitiful that it almost hurts.

"It wasn't them," He says. "I wouldn't do that, I swear. Not to - not to _kids_ , Jesus, Phil. No matter how desperate I was, I wouldn't."

Phil believes him.

"Alright," He says, quietly, more to himself than anything else. He wishes he could just let it all go, but he doesn't want to leave anything to sit and fester, he wants to clear everything he doesn't want to talk about all at once, like lancing the poison from a wound. "Your parents."

Dan laughs, humourlessly, the sound like there are shards of glass in his throat.

"Just...just kick me while I'm down, s'fine, Phil."

"That's not what I'm trying to do," Phil says, in a tone of forced calm. He cups a palm over his knife, reassuring himself that it's still there now that Dan's definitely coming down. "You walked out without - without even saying anything, and then - and then you get messed up and you're at some party with some _guy_ , and -"

"Some guy," Dan repeats.

"Your parents," Phil says, firmly, not wanting to change the subject. "Did you always know they were alive?"

Dan's answering _yes_ is so quiet Phil almost misses it.

"Then why-?"

"I never wanted to involve you in any of this shit," Dan says, quietly. "When - when you were looking for a flatmate I...All I wanted was for it to be me but I couldn't put you through it. I should've - should've stuck to that, should've stayed in the zone-"

"With Sam?" Phil says. Dan turns his head to look at him. "Was that his name? Your flatmate?"

"He wasn't my flatmate," Dan says, after a moment's silence. "He just wouldn't leave me alone."

"So you killed him," Phil says.

Dan squeezes his eyes shut and covers his face with his hands.

"It wasn't like that."

"Alright," Phil says. "So he died and you just happened to be there-"

"No," Dan says, loudly, and actually sits up. He still hasn't retracted his fangs and they glint, long and deadly, in the streetlight spilling in through the window. Phil squeezes the bulge of his knife tightly through his jeans. "I killed him. And I don't care, I don't regret it, he deserved it. But it's not the way you're making it out to be, like, _oh look, here's another way Dan fucked up_. That's not how it was, alright?"

They just look at each other for a moment in silence, and then Dan's eyes stray downwards. It takes Phil a moment to realise that he's noticed the knife.

"You should just do it," He says, softly. Phil moves his hand like he's been burned. "Like. I'm off the wagon now. I'm a threat to you, and - and Peej, I could - you smell really fucking good, you know that?"

"Yeah, we already talked about that," Phil says, his mouth dry.

"And you just let that slide," Dan says, the ghost of a laugh in his voice. "Alright. Great plan, Phil. Great hunter strategy. I could - I could just drain the pair of you in your sleep. I could kill you any second now."

Except he doesn't sound vindictive, or violent - his voice shakes and he can't keep looking Phil in the eye. The hand he brings up to cover his eyes trembles, and Phil listens to him breathing in and out for a moment, his chest aching.

"You could but you won't," Phil says, softly, after a moment, blinking hard. "Tell me about this Sam guy. Why did you kill him?"

Dan breathes for a few moments more, the sound weirdly loud in the quiet room.

"He wouldn't leave me alone," He says, after a moment, knotting his fingers together in his lap and staring down at them. "He - he had this weird obsession, I dunno, he, like - he was so mad when I stopped drinking. That's when everything got worse, I could - I could put up with him when we were both...well, you know. But afterwards - he wanted me to drink again. Like, all the time. And - and he'd show up at the house constantly, always - always trying to get me to fuck up. And then..."

He shakes his head.

"That last day when I was getting my stuff, he started talking about you," He says, and looks up at Phil. "He'd - he'd mentioned you before, like, asking about who I'd been with, 'cause - 'cause he could always tell when I'd been with you. By, like, smell, or whatever. And, um. That last day he." Dan frowns. "I was stood by the door and - and I just wanted to get out of there, and he starts talking about how it'd take him less than a day to find me. To find you. And I couldn't think of any way out of it and I didn't know what to do, so - so I killed him."

Phil feels sick. Dan's expression is honest and open, the whites of his eyes an ugly red colour.

"How?" He hears himself ask.

"We had a fight," Dan says. "I, er. I snapped his neck. And then, like. Knife through his heart."

Phil swallows and nods. He can see the scene floating behind his eyelids - Dan, how pretty he'd looked showing up at the house with all his belongings that day - standing over the form of some faceless vamp, his hands shaking, knuckles scratched and bleeding, a bloody knife clutched in his fist.

"I didn't know what else to do," Dan says, desperately. "He would've found us, he - the way he was _talking_ about you, Phil, I-"

"I don't need to know what he said," Phil says, but he says it gently. "I - I understand."

Dan shakes his head.

"That should've been my warning," He says, more to himself than to Phil. "That should've been it. I should've just gone, I shouldn't have come here. All the time I'm here I'm just - I'm just putting you in danger."

"Except I can take care of stuff like that," Phil says, calmly. "I know what I'm doing, Dan."

"That's not the point," Dan says, and fists his hands in his hair, staring down at the ground, elbows on his knees. "You shouldn't have to put up with this shit, you - you shouldn't have to come and get me from blue zone parties, you shouldn't have to-"

Phil doesn't know why he moves beyond the fact that Dan's voice is getting faster and faster, more and more agitated, so he moves across the floor faster than he could've given himself credit for and touches Dan's knees, his elbows, feeling his overheated skin and coaxing his hands away from their white-knuckled grip in his own hair. He knows it's dangerous right now, being this close to Dan, looking up at him from his position on the floor. It's worth it for the way Dan's posture relaxes, if only a little, the way his hand slips into Phil's and holds on.

"It's getting worse," Dan says. "I - I can't-"

"Tell me about your parents," Phil says, softly, the hand Dan isn't holding stroking a soothing line against Dan's leg. "Just keep talking."

"Y'know, I'm not sure if discussing everything that's shit in my life is really, like, the way to wean me off the red stuff," Dan says, wryly. When Phil doesn't say anything, Dan squeezes his hand tight for a second. "You had to study vamps at home, right? Like, as part of your training?"

Phil nods.

"So, like, I dunno if you know this, but there's this thing, er. When a vamp makes someone like them, they - some of them like to do this thing where they -" He swallows. "They enthrall the vamp they turned and - and force them to kill their parents."

"Fuck."

"I know," Dan says, with a sad smile. "It's like some type of rite of passage thing, like, I don't get it. I just know that a lot of vamps do it. Some of them..." He falters. "Not all of them are enthralled, y'know. It's this big thing nobody seems to talk about."

"So," Phil says, slowly, piecing it together. "Your mum and dad..."

"She made it pretty clear that's what she wanted from me," Dan says. "So I ran. I couldn't go home. I've - I just - it's easier to say they're dead, 'cause - 'cause then there's no trail, you know? There's nothing to follow, just in case she...in case she finds me." He closes his eyes and shakes his head. "And she will. You know that, right? I can't ever promise that - that we're safe, and that's why I shouldn't be here. And I'm sorry I lied to you, I should've told you, I just - it's safer to say they're dead, that's all."

"Ok," Phil says, softly.

Dan still has his eyes shut, and when he opens them there's such a raw look of pain on his face that Phil feels a lump rise in his own throat.

"I just - I never got to tell them anything. I never - I never got to say I was sorry for - for getting myself killed, and - and I can't tell them not to worry, I - I can't do _anything_ , and they're looking for me, they're always gonna be _looking_ for me-"

Phil moves then, getting up so he can put his arms around Dan and pull him close. Dan holds onto him tightly, pressing his face into Phil's stomach and gripping onto handfuls of his work jacket, pulling the material tight, his whole body shaking.

"It's ok," Phil says, even though it's meaningless and his own voice is shaky. "It's ok, Dan, it's ok..."

"It's my fault," Dan says, and his voice sounds broken. "They're worried about me and it's my fault, I messed everything up-"

"No, you didn't," Phil says, and strokes a hand through his hair, biting his lip hard enough to cut. "You didn't, I promise..."

They stay like that for a long time. Phil strokes Dan's hair and says meaningless things and Dan holds onto him so tightly that it hurts.

A tiny, selfish part of Phil never wants him to let go.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> another update?? so soon??? surely not!!! (Idk if I'll be this prompt next week bc I need to work on my reverse bang fic but yay for regular updates while they last!)
> 
> as ever thank you all so much for being so wonderful about this fic, you're all unbelievably kind and understanding (and patient considering I've become the worst updater ever) and I think you're all pretty great <3 every comment and kudos truly makes my day, I know that sounds lame but I get email alerts about them and I can't explain how awesome it is getting emails about you guys actually liking this??? thank you all so so much <3
> 
> as ever there are definitely mistakes but I'll notice them in the morning and cringe a thousand cringes, pls forgive me in the meantime thank u <3

PJ gets back to the flat in the middle of the morning.  
  
"They took a statement," He says, shortly. "I could've gone home hours ago but I didn't wanna leave Lilia and Kit on their own."  
  
Phil swallows. He'd locked Dan's bedroom door behind him when he'd heard PJ return, swiping the key off the bedside table. It sits in his pocket like a dead weight.  
  
"How are they?"  
  
PJ shrugs. Phil can tell he's angry - he can read it in the lines of his body, the set of his mouth. He has his jacket in his hand and he lifts it like he means to throw it and then doesn't, pacing a little in front of the front door.  
  
"Blood loss. Er. Someone said something about - about therapy, counselling-"  
  
"Peej," Phil says, helplessly.  
  
"I'm not angry with you," PJ says, in a voice that doesn't exactly match up with his words. He seems to realise that and he pauses in his pacing, sighing. "I'm - I'm not."  
  
"Right," Phil says, gnawing his thumbnail. "I - I understand if you are, I'm - I'm not proud of...of protecting him like that."  
  
He's not proud but he'd do it again in a second. In a heartbeat.  
  
"I..." PJ runs a hand through his hair, finally throwing his jacket over the back of the sofa. "It's not like I wanted him to get arrested. I - I care about him too, you know?"  
  
"I know."  
  
"I just - those _kids_ , Phil. He was just there, and they had _children_ around as their party food? And _that's_ the kind of gathering he suddenly wants to go to?"  
  
"He's not in a good place," Phil says, weakly. "It's - it's not my place to say, I - I'm really sorry, I know that must've - it must've brought it all back for you, I'm so sorry."  
  
PJ just shakes his head, mouth shut tight.  
  
"This isn't about me."  
  
"I know," Phil says, and takes a cautious step closer, then another when PJ doesn't move. "I really am sorry, Peej."  
  
PJ lets Phil hug him for what feels like the longest moment before he finally hugs back.  
  
-  
  
The next morning, Phil brings Dan some blood substitute. He groans, rubbing his eyes, takes a mouthful and then vomits violently in the mop bucket next to his bed.  
  
Phil had kind of expected that. He offers him some water and awkwardly rubs his back, then takes the bucket back to the kitchen to clean it.  
  
"You should lock me in again," Dan says, sourly, with a voice that sounds like it was dragged over broken glass. "I could still kill you."  
  
Phil ignores him.  
  
-  
  
"That bad, hmm?" Di says when he calls her at about three to let her know he won't be in that evening.  
  
"I," Phil rubs a hand over his eyes. Dan's mostly been asleep all day - or pretending to be asleep, Phil doesn't know. Phil himself only managed a few hours of uneasy dozing, broken by weird dreams and waking up suddenly with his heart clenching, worried that Dan had worsened while he wasn't watching him. "I just need to be at home tonight, that's all."  
  
"Ok," Di says, in a tone of voice that doesn't give anything away. "Let me know how it all is."  
  
"I will," Phil says, helplessly, and hangs up.  
  
-  
  
PJ's out when Dan finally emerges from his room.  
  
"I heard you guys talking before," He admits, quietly, in the kitchen doorway, making Phil jump. He'd zoned out a little, looking out of the window without really taking in anything beyond it.  
  
"Sorry?" Phil says.  
  
The whites of Dan's eyes are an ugly red that Phil's only seen in photographs before - the blood red of a clean vampire falling off the wagon. His mum had explained the science once - something about how the body isn't used to what it needs anymore so it reacts badly.  
  
Seeing a photo is worlds away from standing across the room from Dan and seeing his slouched posture, his sore-looking eyes and defeated stance, like one good push to the shoulder could knock him over.  
  
"You and Peej," Dan says. "I know I upset him."  
  
Phil doesn't know what to say. It's all mixed up in his head, holding Dan close last night while he cried and the echo of Dan hugging him outside the library when Violet had been taken away - Penny's anguished face in the library and PJ's expression of disbelief just outside the blue zone.  
  
"He'll be fine," Phil says, at last, knowing it's not enough. "D'you want a coffee?"  
  
Dan shakes his head.  
  
"Blow to the head'd be nice," He says, wryly. Phil can't really join in with the joke when Dan looks like just standing upright is a struggle. "How about you, are you ok?"  
  
There's something awkward about the way he says it, about the way his eyes dart away from Phil's.

"Good," He says. "I called in sick. I, er. Di says it's fine, so."

"You don't have to do that," Dan protests.

Phil shrugs.

"Yeah I did," He says. "D'you-? D'you think you can keep some substitute down?"

Dan shakes his head.

"I, er," He waves his hand a little. "Your heart sounds really, like, wet today. I don't - I like hearing it but normally I don't pay that much attention. It's, like, heightened senses or something."

"It'll get better," Phil says, weakly, because there's nothing else he can say.

Dan just nods a little. He's barefoot, and the sight of his toes on the kitchen tiles is so ordinary, so _human_ that it makes Phil's heart hurt.

"You didn't tell Peej," Dan says, slowly, just as Phil's about to put the kettle on. "He thinks I fed on them."

"I," Phil feels caught out. "I didn't know how to say it. He didn't - he didn't really ask."

Dan just looks at him, like he's waiting to say something.

"It's not 'cause you think I lied? You - you think I did feed on them after all?"

Phil opens his mouth at that, then closes it again, feeling like a fish gasping and floundering out of water. There _is_ a doubt, ugly and small, in the back of his mind, and he feels like Dan just shone a spotlight on it, throwing it into sharp relief.

"I never said that," He says. "I. It's just. You were there, Dan, and they were there, and - and -"

"And I wouldn't feed on kids," Dan says. "I wouldn't - I." He sighs. "I know this guy. A donor, he - I've done deals with him before so I knew I could trust him. I dunno." He runs a hand through his hair and exhales, not meeting Phil's eye, like there's something there he doesn't want to see. "I just felt so - I dunno. Everything was a mess, and - and mum and dad-" His voice trembles a little and he squeezes his eyes shut tight, hands clenched into fists. When he opens his eyes again his gaze is hard and resolute. "You know it makes everything feel good, right? I don't mean, like, just hunger, or whatever, it - it softens everything 'round the edges. Like, you know everything's fucked up but it's fucked up far away. It can't touch you. It's like you're packed in cotton wool and - and everything feels good and nothing matters anymore."

Phil's heard all of that before in his training.

"It's addictive," He says, softly, because he knows that much.

"It's - it's not even - it's how it makes you _feel_ ," Dan says. "I know - I know that's not an excuse, but." He swallows. "I wanted all the bad shit to go away. Just for a while. I didn't know what else to do."

Guilt sits hot and sickening in Phil's stomach. He thinks about the way he'd burst back into the flat with that poster. If he'd handled that whole situation better, maybe - maybe Dan wouldn't have relapsed like that.

"But it was a donor," Phil repeats, hating himself but having to know for sure. "It wasn't -"

"It wasn't those kids," Dan insists. "I fed way before I got to the party. I." He pauses and then scrabbles at his jeans pocket, pulling out his phone. He taps around for a second and crosses the kitchen, handing it to Phil, open on a text conversation. "He's - Ryan, I've known him for a while. As soon as - as soon as I'd taken down all the posters I could find I texted him."

 _you busy tonight_ , Dan's first text says, sent at around ten o'clock.

 _thought you were on the wagon_ , the response says, a matter of minutes later.

_are you busy or not_

_best i can do is a pint for the usual price_ , the next reply says.

Phil looks up at that point. Dan's just standing there, chewing on his thumbnail.

"What's the usual price?" He asks, even though it's the last thing he wants to know.

Dan laughs, hollow and ill-sounding.

"Two hundred," He says, smiling humourlessly when Phil swears under his breath. "I had some saved just - just in case I needed it."

He looks so ashamed that Phil feels bad for even asking. He scrolls through the rest of the conversation, feeling faintly sick, but the rest is just a discussion about addresses. The whole conversation takes place way before midnight - way before Phil got the phone call off Dan at the library.

"So that's what you meant when you said you'd messed up," He says, slowly, handing the phone back.

Dan nods.

"That was it, that was the feeding, nothing to do with those kids," He insists, eyes wide, and Phil believes him, the doubt in the back of his mind gone.

"D'you want a coffee?" He offers, lamely. He feels like he's playing both parts in some good cop bad cop routine and the bad cop just left, just leaving Phil feeling weird and sickened at the thought of Dan going to some random stranger in the night, paying that much money for a measly pint of blood.

"That's it, then," Dan says. "Interrogation's over?"

Phil turns away, feeling nauseated.

"I wasn't interrogating, I just - I had to know."

"But you believe me," Dan says. Phil clicks the kettle on and reaches into the cupboard for two mugs. He feels like he should be able to see a neon outline of that text conversation behind his eyelids when he blinks, spooning instant coffee into the mugs and shutting the cutlery drawer with unnecessary force. "Phil."

Phil doesn't know why the thought of Dan going to a donor makes him feel so sick. It's not like he wanted Dan to have fed off those kids - the opposite, in fact, that's the last thing he wanted. He should feel relieved that he was wrong, and he does feel relieved - but -

"You're mad," Dan says, softly. He's standing behind him, leaning against the opposite kitchen counter and giving him this considering look. "I - I don't - you didn't want me to feed off those kids, so then I tell you I didn't and then you're still mad?"

"I'm not mad," Phil says. The nausea swirling in the pit of his stomach could definitely be anger.

"Your heart's going crazy," Dan points out. "Either you're mad or you're having a heart attack, you're gonna have to let me know which it is-"

"Don't," Phil says, turning back to the coffee cups. He watches steam spiralling out of the spout of the kettle without really seeing it, sick scenes playing behind his eyelids of Dan going to this faceless donor, this Ryan guy. His treacherous mind feeds him images of Dan, pale and sweating, showing up at this guy's place, the guy letting him in and the door shutting behind them and - and what?

He knows blood donation isn't always a sex thing. A lot of that's a cliché, ramped up to a million in popular culture. It's not even that that's making Phil feel so sick, it's - it's -

"You're jealous," Dan says, so quietly that Phil almost doesn't hear him over the rasp of the kettle.

Phil doesn't know what to say, because there isn't anything he can say that isn't a lie. The kettle boils and clicks, and Phil steadies his hands enough to pour hot water into their cups. When he turns to get milk, Dan's just looking at him, disbelief writ large on his face.

"What, so that's it?" He says, in the same quiet voice. "You want me to - _that's_ what you want?"

Heat rushes to Phil's face.

"No," He insists, because that's true at least. "No, shit, no, I never wanted that."

"But you're jealous," Dan says, flatly. "You're jealous of Ryan."

"No!" Phil says. "Yeah, I - God, it's not like that, you're getting it all wrong-"

"Oh, I'm sorry," Dan says, sounding angry himself now. "Sorry for getting the wrong end of the stick when you're _jealous_ of me _drinking a pint of someone else's blood_ , what the fuck?"

"It's not like that," Phil says, raising his voice, feeling hot and embarrassed. Dan ignores him.

"Do you want me to kill you? Is that it? Is this some fucked up kink you didn't mention before, because I feel like this is something we really should've discussed earlier-"

"You needed him," Phil all but shouts, trying to get Dan to _stop talking_. It's only when Dan falls back, taking a step backwards til his back hits the counter again, that Phil realises what he's said. "You - you _needed_ him. He - you needed something and only he could -" He gestures, inarticulately. "Only he could help you, and - and I don't want you to fucking _feed_ on me, I don't have some fucking _death kink_ , alright? Jesus Christ, Dan, are you _kidding_ me? I just." He pushes his hands under his glasses to rub at his eyes, suddenly feeling exhausted. "You needed him and. And it's a fucking mess but I - I can't ever be that person that you need, and - and I wish I could. And it's fucked up and gross and I fucking hate that I feel like this but -" He throws his hands wide, as if to say _here I am_. "There it is, alright?"

When Dan doesn't say anything straight away, his expression unreadable, Phil just goes to get the milk out of the fridge like he'd never said anything, the bottle trembling a little in his hands. God, how did he ever become a hunter when he's like this, hands shaking at the first sign of confrontation or fear? What were his parents thinking? He gets the milk over to the coffee cups and just puts it down, too scared to turn around and look Dan in the eye. He can feel the prickle of his gaze on the back of his neck.

"I don't need him," Dan says, at last.

"It doesn't matter," Phil says, even though he still feels sick at the thought, turning to face Dan. His expression's inscrutable, red rimmed eyes trained on Phil's face. "It - you don't have to justify anything to me, I shouldn't - I shouldn't have said anything, I'm sorry-"

"I don't need him," Dan repeats. Phil can't look at his face so he looks at his hands instead, gripping the sides of the countertop tightly like he's scared to let go. "Jesus, Phil, are you-? You really think that?"

Something about the catch of his voice when he speaks makes Phil look at his face, his eyes. He gulps, his breath catching in his throat.

"What?"

"That I don't need you," Dan says. He lets go of the countertop and takes first one step forwards, then another, like he's scared Phil might run. Phil's heart's beating stupidly fast and his mouth's dry. His brain gives him a bunch of confused flashes of memory - the scared faces of those kids in the kitchen, the small hunch of PJ's shoulders before he'd disappeared into his room, Dan's head lolling onto his shoulder, smile bright and dangerous.

Dan now, close enough to touch. His pupils are shot, the red whites of his eyes livid and a little gross from this close, his lips dry and flaky, and still the most beautiful thing Phil's ever seen in his life. All of a sudden Phil's scared, heart skipping - scared of messing this up, scared of whatever's about to happen, scared of _himself_.

"I shouldn't have said anything," He says, trying to brush it off. "It's - it's stupid-"

"I need you," Dan says, ignoring him again. Then he pulls a face at himself. "Ok, there's no way to say that without sounding fucking stupid, I don't mean it like, _oh Phil, I need you_ ," He clutches his hands to his chest and says it in a high pitched voice, apparently trying for damsel in distress. "I just." His smile at himself falls and he looks down for a second, and Phil's helpless to do anything but watch his eyelashes and the way he bites at the dry skin on his bottom lip. "When I died, like. I thought, that's it, you know? Like, you're dead, you spent your entire fucking life worrying about - about money and good grades and uni and now you're dead and - and you're a monster."

"Dan," Phil says, quietly.

"It's ok," Dan says. "Like, I'm used to it, whatever. You literally spent your entire childhood like, training to kill things like me, so." He shrugs, with a tiny smile. "I just. I didn't think I could feel...anything, like this. And I spent so long like, running and not wanting to - to talk to people, or - or make connections, 'cause like - at the end of the day a person's a snack, now, right? I mean I proved that myself, like - I'm never just gonna be Dan again, that guy died, and - and he isn't coming back." He swallows. "So that's where I was, like. Not liking myself much at all. Ever. And I still don't, but -" He reaches up and rests a cold hand on the side of Phil's neck. "But there's you."

"There's me," Phil repeats, voice barely a whisper.

Dan smiles, then laughs a little, quietly, Phil laughing too even though he doesn't know why.

"Yeah," He says. "And you - you're just. It's everything I wanted when I was alive, y'know? Everything - everything other people talked about, like. That one person who - who lights everything up."

Phil's throat feels thick and tight, like he can't breathe - like he's about to cry, even though his eyes are dry. It's a weird feeling, like a bunch of emotions are stuck inside him and he can't process oxygen for a moment because he feels so much that it almost hurts.

"So, like," Dan shrugs, bringing his other hand up to touch Phil's jaw. "No, I don't need to, like, drink your fucking blood. It's not like that. I'm not gonna - I'm not gonna die if you're not around, or anything, I just. Don't think I don't need you, that's all."

"I was being stupid," Phil says, dumbly. His brain can't process anything when Dan's touching him the way he is.

"Yeah you were," Dan says, softly. His thumb touches Phil's bottom lip and Phil feels that one brush all the way down to his toes, air stuttering out of his lungs. The last thing he thinks before Dan moves in close is that they really shouldn't do this when Dan's sick and coming down, that Phil's probably a bad person for how his bones feel like they've turned to jelly and he couldn't make himself walk away for the life of him.

There's the scraping sound of a key in the front door and then a creak and the rustle of shopping bags, and the pair of them spring apart so fast that Phil jolts backwards into the forgotten cups of coffee and ends up spilling some. Swearing, he dives for a tea towel just as PJ edges into the room. Phil wipes up the coffee and looks anywhere but at Dan's face.

His thoughts are slow and his face is tingling and he can't reconcile the fact that he's standing here with a wet tea towel while Dan pretends to be adjusting the herbs on the rack by the microwave when they could be -

When they could be-

"I just - I got some stuff," PJ says, slowly. Phil watches the way his eyes land on Dan and then dart away quickly, like he's ashamed to have looked, his usually open expression shutting down in an instant. He stupidly hopes that Dan doesn't notice but of course he does - Phil can tell right away by the way his shoulders slump, almost imperceptibly. His heart sinks.

"Good, good, that's good," He says, all in a rush, moving over to take a bag off Peej. "That's awesome, thanks Peej, that's- that's really good."

"You already said that," PJ tells him, bringing the other bag over to the side. In the mess of the pair of them unpacking the bags, Dan picks up his coffee and makes a beeline for the kitchen door - a moment later, his bedroom door closes behind him with a quiet snap. PJ's hands still in the plastic bag and he sighs. "I'm sorry."

"It's ok," Phil says, awkwardly. It's such a difficult, messy situation. PJ has every right to be upset about Dan being at a party with donors, of course it'd bring up ugly thoughts about PJ's own past with vamps in the blood farm, but Phil knows how Dan feels too. He thinks of the look on Dan's face when he'd referred to himself as a monster not ten minutes ago, and his throat feels tight.

"It's not," PJ says.

They unpack the shopping and put it away in silence. It's only when Phil's sipping his cold coffee and thinking about maybe calling Martyn before work that PJ says something.

"I wasn't lying," He says. "When I said I didn't have a problem with vamps, I wasn't lying."

"I know," PJ says, alarmed. "I never said you had a problem with-"

"No, no, I know," PJ says, in a rush. "But I know how this looks, with me, and - and -" He gestures helplessly in the direction of the kitchen door. "It just - those _kids_ , Phil."

"I know," Phil says. "He didn't feed on them, you know. I mean, he said he didn't and I believe him. He went to a donor. And I know that doesn't make it ok," He adds, quickly, when it seems PJ might interrupt. "I know he was still at the party, and - and that's shitty, but -" And he can't go into it, into everything Dan's going through. It's not his business to tell PJ any of that stuff. "I just...I just thought you'd wanna know that he didn't feed on them."

PJ unconsciously pulls his sleeves down over his hands. It's something Phil's seen him do a thousand times when he's nervous, and it hurts a little more this time because he knows he's making sure his arms are covered.

"I should talk to him, shouldn't I," He says, thoughtfully.

Phil doesn't know what to say, so he just nods.

"I'm gonna go up to the roof, I think," He says. "To call my brother. So you guys can, like..." He waves a hand.

PJ nods.

"I'll just - tea," He says, gesturing at the kettle. Phil smiles at him, touching his shoulder as he passes on his way to the kitchen door.

-

Phil doesn't know what exactly happens in PJ and Dan's conversation about the party, except that everything gets easier between them over the next few days. They're back to playing video games together and laughing about memes, or whatever, and the atmosphere in the flat is all the better for it.

It's about the only thing that gets better. Dan's withdrawal has him trapped in the flat like a caged lion, pacing from wall to wall each day in the living room and drinking coffee endlessly, the mugs lining up like soldiers on the coffee table. It means Phil spends a few lonely nights at work, entertained only by Dan's texts and talking to Di.

"I don't get it," PJ says over dinner on Wednesday, when Dan makes some comment about how he's going crazy trapped in the flat all day. "You seem, like, alright now. I mean, your eyes, and.." He gestures at Dan's general demeanour, which is much improved from the weekend. He can drink substitute now without throwing up, and he looks like his old self again.

Dan just shakes his head, hunched over a mug of blood substitute.

"Not yet," He says, with a shudder. "It's just -" He pats his chest. "I can feel it, in here. It's. I'm gonna be hungry for a while. Like, hungrier than usual. I wanna stay in until it stops."

Phil doesn't say anything. He had noticed Dan getting through more substitute than normal now that he can drink it again, but he hadn't wanted to say anything about it in case he inadvertently put Dan off eating altogether. He privately agrees with PJ that it'd be safe for Dan to go outside now, and that maybe he's being a little overly cautious, but he doesn't say so.

It isn't until Saturday, Phil's night off, that Phil thinks maybe Dan hadn't been cautious in staying in all week. They'd ended up watching a film in Phil's room and nodding off, which hasn't happened since before the party. Phil hadn't realised how much he'd missed Dan sleeping next to him until he was again, and he kept sleepily turning over in the night and catching sight of Dan lying next to him and just smiling to himself, burying his head in the pillow in case Dan woke up and saw him being creepy and weird.

He doesn't know what time it is when Dan gets out of bed and all but runs from the room, wrenching the door open so hard it swings inwards and bangs against the bookshelf, waking Phil up with a start. He lies there in the dark, overheated and disorientated under the blankets, listening to Dan's quick footsteps down the hall and the bathroom door creaking open and then shutting abruptly. It isn't until he hears the lock click shut behind him that he thinks something might be wrong and gets out of bed, scratching his head and yawning.

"Dan?" He whispers once he's padded to the bathroom door. "Is everything ok?"

He can hear Dan moving around in there, walking back and forth, back and forth, the way he has been in the living room all week.

"Dan?" He repeats, touching the door.

"Go back to bed," Dan says, at last, voice low. There's something about it that makes the hairs on the back of Phil's neck prickle.

"What's wrong?"

"Go back to bed," He repeats, sounding more urgent.

"Not until you tell me what's wrong," Phil says, firmly.

"I can't," Dan says. "I can't, I'm - I need to - I can hear your heart, Phil, and - and PJ's and - oh God-"

The penny drops. Phil's heart lurches in his chest and he feels himself straightening up, taking on a more defensive stance. He remembers his worry about Dan being enthralled, the way he'd imagined scrabbling for his weapons case to defend himself while Dan tried to break down his bedroom door.

He thinks about the knife block in the kitchen and how fast he could get in there. PJ's bedroom is at the end of the hall. Could he get to the knife block and back before Dan got there? Would it even come to that?

"When did you last eat?" Phil asks, trying to stay calm.

"Don't," Dan says, his voice suddenly closer. The door thumps, like Dan's moved right up against it. "I know you're scared, don't - don't be nice to me."

"I'm not scared," Phil says, thinking it through.

"I am," Dan says, making a hiccupping noise that's not quite crying but not quite laughing either. "I don't - I can't trust myself. This is all my fault, I should never have - Ryan, it wasn't worth it. It's never worth it."

"Dan," Phil says, in a voice that's much more determined than it was a moment before. "I'm gonna go for a second and then I'll be back, and I want you to unlock the door."

"I can't-"

"You can," Phil says, evenly. "You won't hurt me, alright? I know you won't."

"You can't know that," Dan says, sounding breathless and small. "You can't - _I_ don't even know that, Phil-"

"You won't hurt me," Phil repeats. Then, after a moment's pause, he adds, "You need me, remember?"

He hears the soft sound of Dan's laughter through the door.

"Fuck off."

Phil grins, hand pressed against the door.

"Yeah, well, you said it," He says. "And - and I never got to say that, like. Me too. With you." He pauses, swallows, feeling stupid saying it to a door. He coughs. "So I'm gonna go for a second, ok, I'll be as quick as I can, and then when I come back you're gonna unlock the door, alright?"

"Are you gonna get a stake?"

"Shut up," Phil says. "Just unlock the door but only when I get back." When Dan doesn't reply, he adds, "Dan?"

"Ok, ok," Dan says.

It takes all of three minutes to run to the kitchen, grab a bag of blood substitute from the fridge and make a slit in the top of the bag with a knife from the knife block. For all of half a second he considers bringing a knife back with him and then thinks better of it, letting it clatter down on the side while he runs back out into the hallway and down to the bathroom.

"I'm back," He says unnecessarily. "Unlock the door."

"Phil-"

"Just do it."

There's a moment's pause before the lock snicks and the door creaks open, and as soon as it does Phil moves fast, crowding Dan further into the bathroom until he's up against the sink, at the same time lifting the bag of blood substitute to his mouth and encouraging him to drink, a hand against the back of his head.

"Idiot," He says, softly, while Dan gulps down the substitute, eyes falling closed. "You know you could've just gone into the kitchen and done this yourself, right?"

He doesn't expect a reply, but Dan cracks one eye open. Without stopping in gulping down the substitute, he flashes his middle finger in Phil's face.

Phil laughs.

"I'm just saying," He says, his treacherous hand stroking the back of Dan's head a little bit, feeling the velvety texture of the shaved parts under his fingers. Now's a really bad time to think of that moment in the kitchen that PJ had interrupted, when Dan had been touching his face and they'd definitely been about to kiss. It's like this moment is some sick parody, the two of them so close like this and Dan with his eyes closed. Phil gulps and tilts the bag higher the emptier it gets, and when it's empty he drops it on the floor but doesn't back up off Dan, not yet.

There's red around his mouth. It smells weirdly chemical, like hospital cleaner or something. Dan lets out a long breath and licks the remnants off his lips and it's so so terrible but Phil's stomach flips and his heartbeat stutters because apparently blood substitute is really what does it for him. He's a mess.

Dan opens his eyes.

"I could go for another bag, to be honest," He says, his voice a little hoarse and his eyes flickering from Phil's own to his mouth. That's when Phil knows he'll be alright, awkwardly letting him go and taking a step backwards.

They end up retreating to the sofa. Phil makes himself a coffee much to Dan's horror, but he knows he won't sleep again now that he's awake. Dan grabs some substitute from the fridge and then lingers in the kitchen, the pair of them moving silently around each other. Phil tries not to think about that moment in here, the fact that they could've kissed, they might've kissed if PJ hadn't come back. He doesn't know if Dan's thinking about it too but his stupid heartbeat quickens and he hates the fact that it's probably giving him away.

If Dan notices he doesn't say anything. He just smiles at Phil, soft and gentle, like he wasn't deathly afraid of murdering him a matter of minutes ago. They curl up with blankets, and Phil sips his coffee and watches Dan drink bag after bag of substitute, tearing the seals off with his teeth.

Phil leans his head against the back of the sofa a little, cupping his coffee carefully in his cold hands. He's too tired to pretend not to be watching Dan.

Dan finishes the bag he's drinking with a small smile, eyes dark and somehow knowing.

"It's like being a kid," He says, laughing a little. "When your mum makes sure you eat all your vegetables."

"Fuck off," Phil says, laughing too, prodding him in the thigh with his foot. "That makes me your mum in that analogy, you're gross."

Dan just laughs again, the sound soft and warm.

"Shouldn't feel so good," He says, as though it's a crime to be happy. "Like. I relapsed, I upset PJ, I - you guys could've died coming to get me back from there. You could've died when I was coming down, you could've-"

"But I didn't," Phil says, patiently, watching Dan tear open his third substitute bag. "And - and you can't just feel guilty forever, Dan."

Dan gives him a pointed look that tells him exactly what he thinks about that pronouncement. He drinks again, less frantically than before, and Phil sips more coffee.

"When we first, like, became friends," Dan says, thoughtfully, after a moment, licking his lips. They haven't bothered to turn the light on and in the near-dark everything almost seems blue. "You'd, like. Whenever you asked me stuff about myself I was so scared. Like, always. 'Cause - 'cause you didn't know, and - and I liked you so much, and I was so convinced that if you ever found out about me you'd just - you'd never be the same with me again."

"I remember," Phil says, softly, remembering those long-forgotten days when Dan would disappear for days on end and Phil would be convinced each time that he'd never come back, that he'd blown it for good that time.

"I just," Dan shakes his head. "I just - there was never anyone to talk to, you know? So - so dying became this, like, shameful thing. It's still - I still feel that way about it sometimes." He taps his chest absent-mindedly, like he's indicating where the feeling comes from.

"You never registered yourself," Phil realises, slowly. "When - when you died, you never-"

Dan shakes his head. Phil lets out a breath. Of course Dan didn't. Vamps are required by law to register their deaths - it involves a lot of paperwork, a lot of interviews, and government funded therapy sessions. Phil knows from his training that it's like bereavement counselling, almost, except the bereaved are mourning the loss of their own life rather than someone else's.

"I couldn't risk her finding me," He says. Then, after a moment's pause, he adds, "And I didn't want to. I didn't wanna talk about that shit with some random person, I didn't wanna - I didn't wanna be put under a microscope, you know?"

Phil understands that, but the thought of Dan keeping everything in - every bad feeling, every awful thought, every craving and every painful thing - makes him feel terrible for him. He wants to open his arms and he wants to pull Dan close to him, here on the sofa. There's one piece of Dan's fringe that's falling in this perfect curl over his forehead, and Phil kind of wants to touch it. He kind of wants to hold Dan close and stroke his hair, even though he knows it's selfish, and none of it would take any of the bad shit away.

"Maybe it'd help if you registered," He suggests, gently. "It's - we could do some research into it, like - I'm sure I heard at one of Bryony's things that it's, like, a confidential process. They have to keep your information private, so - so she wouldn't find out, if that's true. We could ask."

Dan's face is a little closed-off, eyes distant.

"I dunno," He says. There's something about the look on his face that makes Phil move, finding his cold hand amongst the blankets and squeezing it tight. It's worth it for the startled look that melts into a smile, the way he holds tightly right back. "D'you think it'd help?"

There's something about how small his voice is when he says it that makes Phil feel like something breaks inside of him.

"I think it might, yeah," He says.

"Ok," Dan says. He lifts their joined hands to his mouth and Phil's heart leaps messily when he rests his mouth against Phil's knuckle in a barely-there kiss, his eyes closed. The moment's broken a second later when he opens his eyes and smiles, wryly. "Can't make things any worse, can it?"

 


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter? is nowhere near as polished as I'd want it to be (but I guess if you've soldiered through the fic this far then you'll be well used to that). I'm sorry anyway, and hope you guys enjoy it <3
> 
> Huge HUGE thanks to anyone who's left kudos or commented, you guys honestly keep me writing this nonsense at 2am, even when it stops making sense and I hate it. Thank you all so much <3
> 
> Also!!! A big thanks to anyone who nominated me for the edge of seat award in the phanfic awards! Listen guys, the voting closes on the 20th and it's literally the 20th now so Idk if you can still like, actually vote but I promised myself I'd do a cheeky self plug even though I hate it so I think?? If it's still open? You can click [here](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScrx3m4TTf5j4wGlLqC5Mi2JnW6CdE_IZgYpvNw7epXwQ4OGw/viewform) and vote for me??? and if not then who cares, thank you so much to anyone who nominated me and anyone who's reading this, you're all wonderful <3
> 
> ONE FINAL NOTE: I have never been to therapy and know literally nothing about the process save for what I've heard from other people. If my portrayal is terrible or offensive please please let me know and I'll try to fix it. But also Dan is getting counselled for literally being dead, so I kind of took the unlikeliness of that and ran with it. Even so, let me know, and keep an eye on those warnings <3

It turns out registering your own death involves one deceptively cheerful looking purple form.  
  
"I like it," Dan says, when Phil gets back from buying milk and finds him sitting on the sofa, hands knotted together under his chin and the form in front of him on the coffee table. "It's like, _hey, you're dead, but we made the form purple_."  
  
Phil puts the milk on the floor by the table and Dan shifts up so he can join him on the sofa, the pair of them looking at the brightly coloured form.  
  
"D'you mind if I-?"  
  
"Nope," Dan says, waving a hand and flopping back against the sofa cushions. "Go ahead. I know what it'll say anyway," He adds, as Phil picks the form up and starts flicking through it. "Cause of death, next of kin, why didn't I register sooner. Have I killed anyone since I died, have I _turned_ anyone since I died...All the fun stuff."  
  
"Basically," Phil says, after skimming a couple of pages. Dan's hugging a cushion to his chest, watching Phil with an unreadable look on his face as he puts the form back on the coffee table. "Think you'll be able to get through it?"  
  
Dan shrugs, looking small and young, somehow.  
  
"I don't really have a choice, do I?" He says, and sighs. "This is...I have to do this. This is like...this is everything I've been, like, avoiding. So I have to."  
  
Phil doesn't say anything. Dan sighs and presses his face into the cushion for a moment.  
  
"D'you ever just think about when you were a kid," He says, turning his head without really raising it, his hair all over the place. "And, like, you were doing something difficult and your mum'd just, do it for you. Or your dad, or whatever. And then shit like this is happening and you just kind of wanna get back to that."  
  
"All the time," Phil says, quietly. He wants to put his arm around Dan but he feels awkward somehow. It feels like Dan's grief for his lost life is private, something he shouldn't intrude upon.  
  
"Yeah," Dan says, his voice small. "It's like that."  
  
Phil does move to put his arm around him then, abandoning the form on the coffee table in favour of reaching for him. He hates himself for the tiny thrill he gets when Dan reaches back.  
  
-  
  
Dan starts going back to work with Phil a few days later.  
  
Part of Phil had toyed with telling Di about what had happened with Dan and why he'd been off for days, but when he and Dan traipse into the building earlier she gives the pair of them this look, and Phil somehow (even though it was impossible) feels certain she's read every event - from Dan's fall off the wagon to their near kiss to the purple death register form - just from the way they walk into the building. He honestly wouldn't put it past her.  
  
Not that she says anything. In fact, life at the library is the same as it always was - eerily so. Phil feels weird to be back, like he's wearing someone else's uniform and doing someone else's job.  
  
"I missed the free coffee," Dan says.  
  
Phil thinks about the purple form that's still sitting at home on the coffee table, untouched since he put it there, and for the first time wonders if Dan's actually here for him or if he's just here to procrastinate. Not that it's any of his business - and not that he thinks the form's a simple thing to complete, not by a long shot, but the longer it sits there the more Phil thinks and worries about it, and worries about mentioning it to Dan.  
  
Not that he could. He'd be too worried about driving Dan away, or saying the wrong thing. At the end of it all Phil doesn't really have a clue what Dan's been through, and he's certain that making a comment about the form would just be him reinforcing his own cluelessness, and it'd probably make Dan feel awful in the bargain.  
  
"You don't still have to come with me, you know," Phil says, instead of mentioning the form.  
  
Dan rolls his eyes, handing him books off the trolley to re-shelf.  
  
"Dunno how many times we have to have this conversation," He says. "I like being here, as long as you don't mind."  
  
" _Don't mind_ ," Phil repeats, scoffing. "It's dull as shit without you."  
  
Dan smiles and hands Phil another book.  
  
"Maybe if I stick around long enough I'll get paid," He says, eyes bright.  
  
Phil laughs.  
  
-  
  
"You just need to duck quicker," Phil tells PJ, wiping sweat off his forehead. They've been training on the roof for the past hour, and the lesson of the day is dodging, the same way it usually is.  
  
PJ shakes his head, panting, hands resting on his knees.  
  
"I give up," He says. "I can't do it, I can't - this is where my years without gym training really show me up."  
  
"You never had _any_ gym training," Phil says, grinning at him, feeling pretty breathless himself.  
  
PJ gives him the finger, which makes him laugh.  
  
"You're not exactly ripped yourself."  
  
"It's not about being ripped," Phil says, rolling his eyes. "Anyone can do it, it's - it's just about practice and not freaking out."  
  
PJ just shakes his head and flops onto the rough concrete.  
  
"I'm just gonna lie here," He says, shielding his eyes from the sun with his arm. "And maybe die, if that's ok."  
  
Phil smiles at him and joins him on the ground, the pair of them staring up at the sky. After a moment, there's a honking noise and a great arc of geese pass far above in perfect formation.  
  
"I bet they don't need to duck quicker," PJ says.  
  
Phil laughs.  
  
"Shut up," He says. "You've improved a lot, you know. More than you think you have."  
  
"Hmm," PJ says. There's silence for a moment. "Really?"  
  
"Really," Phil says, firmly. "I don't want you to think you can't do it just 'cause I'm - I'm giving you direction. I dunno. You're already way better than you used to be."  
  
"D'you fancy my chances?" PJ asks, turning to look at him. "In a fight, I mean."  
  
"Yeah, I do," Phil says, and means it.  
  
PJ grins and looks back up at the sky.  
  
-  
  
When they come back down to the flat, laughing and talking about nonsense, the first thing Phil notices is that the purple form is gone from the coffee table.  
  
"Coffee?" PJ offers from the kitchen.  
  
"Please," Phil says, moving off further into the flat in the search for Dan.  
  
He pauses in the hallway. Dan's bedroom door is ajar, and when he approaches, knocking a little on the door, it swings open. Dan isn't there.  
  
He hears the creak of floorboards behind him and PJ says, "Is he out?"  
  
"Yeah," Phil says, staring at Dan's bed.  
  
It's made for once, which is uncharacteristic for him. He remembers sitting on the floor in the doorway while Dan slept off the blood high - remembers him throwing up, remembers the red of his eyes and the way he'd talked about Phil's heartbeat through the bathroom door.  
  
He startles when PJ touches his shoulder.  
  
"It's fine," PJ says, softly. Phil instantly feels guilty, reaching over and closing Dan's door with a snap.  
  
"I didn't-"  
  
"I know you didn't," PJ says. "But you're worrying. I can practically hear it." He pauses, lowering his voice like he thinks Dan might be hiding under his bed or something. "He wouldn't go back there. Not so soon, not after coming down like that. He - we - when we talked, he kept going on about how terrible he felt. I dunno, you could tell he really meant it." PJ frowns. "It was awful, to be honest. So. I'm sure it's fine."  
  
They end up sitting on the sofa watching TV in awkward silence, the pair of them looking over at the door whenever a noise floats through the open living room window from the street below. Phil's phone is resting on the arm of the sofa and he keeps checking it even though he hasn't had any texts and it hasn't made any noise.  
  
PJ's right, he thinks, firmly. Dan wouldn't go back to the blue zone so soon, not after the ordeal he went through of going cold turkey all over again. Surely he wouldn't. He definitely wouldn't...  
  
He taps his fingernails nervously against the back of his phone. If he texts, that means he's showing Dan that he doesn't trust him. But if he doesn't text and Dan's in trouble, he might never find out. What if Dan went back to the blue zone, realised he'd made a mistake but then got set upon by some of the vamps from the party? What if he's stuck somewhere and can't make a phone call?  
  
"It's fine," PJ says every so often, like he can will it to be true if he says it enough. "I'm sure everything's fine."  
  
After about half an hour, Dan's key scrapes in the lock and he comes in carrying a shopping bag.  
  
"Oh, hey," He says, noticing Phil and PJ's vigil on the sofa immediately. "I got some milk. And sugar. And some of that cereal you guys like."  
  
"Great," PJ says, slapping his knees as he gets up like a dad. "Thanks, Dan! I'm gonna grab a shower."  
  
"We, um. Training," Phil says, lamely, when Dan frowns questioningly at PJ after he disappears down the hall.  
  
"Oh," Dan says. "D'you want a drink?"  
  
"I'm...I'm ok," Phil says.  
  
He twists guiltily on the sofa to watch Dan walking over to the kitchen and dumping the shopping bag on the side. He takes four or five bags of subsitute out first and sets them down, then turns and catches Phil's eye.  
  
"Sorry," Phil says, his face hot, quickly picking up his phone and busying himself with it, trying his hardest not to look like he thought Dan had fallen off the wagon again.  
  
"I'm sorry I didn't text," Dan calls, like he read Phil's mind.  
  
"It's fine, it's - you don't need to text me, it's ok, whatever," Phil says, all in one breath.  
  
"Right," Dan says, carrying a pouch of blood substitute back to the sofa and sitting down in the space recently vacated by PJ. Phil keeps his eyes on the TV and watches him slit the pouch open and take a sip out of the corner of his eye. "I gave the form in, by the way."  
  
"Sorry?"  
  
Dan takes another sip from the pouch.  
  
"I gave it in," He says. "I wrote it all last night. Well, some of it. Finished it this morning."  
  
"That's," Phil doesn't know what to say that doesn't betray how relieved he is. "That's great, Dan."  
  
Dan raises his eyebrows, drinking. He stops and wipes his mouth.  
  
"They said that, um. 'Cause I've never registered and I died like, more than six months ago, I'm an _emergency case_ , whatever that means, so it'll be quicker than it normally is. She didn't make it sound like it was a good thing."  
  
"It is," Phil says. "I mean - that it's quicker. Are you relieved?"  
  
Dan shrugs, draining the last of the liquid from the pouch.  
  
"Sorting it out was fucking horrible," He says. "But I guess I don't have to do it again, so that's something."  
  
Phil smiles at him. Dan gives him an uncertain, hesitant look, wiping his mouth again.  
  
"Don't do that," He says, voice gentle. "It's not that big of a deal, Phil."  
  
"Yeah it is," Phil says, and prods Dan in the leg with his socked foot. "I'm proud of you. And I don't care if that's lame."  
  
It's worth it for the way Dan smiles at him.  
  
-  
  
Barely a week passes before a letter arrives at the flat for Dan.  
  
Phil knows what it is as soon as it shows up. Dan's never had a letter in the whole time that he's lived there - Phil imagines him hiding from the vamp who turned him involves not leaving too much of a paper trail. But there it is in the postbox one morning, addressed to _Daniel Howell_.  
  
He looks at it for a moment, postbox keys clutched in his hand, before he reaches out to take it.  
  
"Another bill?" Dan asks, sympathetically, when Phil gets back up to the flat. Phil had work the previous night and the pair of them only just woke up. Phil wishes Dan wasn't wearing his pyjamas right now, his hair sticking up and his eyes somehow soft. It makes it harder to join him again on the sofa and hand him the envelope. "Oh."  
  
"That really was fast," Phil says, stupidly. He watches Dan tear the envelope open, brow furrowed as he unfolds the letter inside and scans it, first once, eyes darting back and forth so fast Phil has no idea how he's taking anything in, and then again, slower this time. He lets out a breath.  
  
"They acknowledge the receipt of my form," He says, slowly. "I, um. I can apply for either blue or yellow classification following mandatory therapy sessions."  
  
"Ah, yeah," Phil says. Dan pulls a face. "Well, yeah, it sucks a bit, but - but it's something, right?"  
  
Dan sighs again and looks at the letter again before folding it back up.  
  
"I guess I had to do it at some point," He says, slowly.  
  
"Yeah," Phil says, and reaches out to take his hand impulsively, before he can worry too much about his sweaty palms. "And you did, and it'll be fine. When did it say your first appointment is?"  
  
Dan blows upwards, puffing his fringe off his forehead.  
  
"Tuesday, I think."  
  
Phil squeezes his hand. After a moment he squeezes back.  
  
"I just..." Dan says. "I knew I was gonna have to talk about it, like - obviously, the form made that obvious. But like...I dunno, now it feels real. It's actually gonna happen, and that's...fucking terrifying."  
  
"But you can do it," Phil says. "I know you can."  
  
Dan raises his eyebrows.  
  
"You know?"  
  
"Yep," Phil says. "You can do most things. Except, like, graciously lose on a game."  
  
Dan laughs, bright and surprised.  
  
"I'm the most gracious loser, fuck off," He says, with a grin.  
  
"Yeah, alright," Phil says. His smile fades after a moment, still holding Dan's hand tightly. "I'm serious, though. I know you can get through it. It's gonna be hard and - and horrible, probably, but I know you can do it."  
  
"I mean," Dan says, giving Phil's hand a squeeze. "With that endorsement how could I not, right?"  
  
-  
  
They end up having an argument right before Dan's first session.  
  
Actually, that's not technically true. Phil thinks it's only really an argument if both parties are actually doing the arguing. In this case it's just Dan.  
  
Phil knows he's nervous about the appointment. Phil himself is nervous about it - he's been checking the date in his phone for days, watching the day creep slowly closer and closer. He's worried that if it all goes wrong then Dan'll blame him - people have bad therapy experiences, right? What if Dan's one of those people? What if he just walks out of there and never gets his classification?  
  
Not that it's important, not that the classification system does anything other than make the lives of vamps even harder. But Phil feels like Dan's kept everything that he's been through inside for so long and if this therapy stuff goes well he might finally feel better about it all. He might finally not view his death as an ending but as a transition into something different. And Phil knows that all of this is really easy for him to think, what with having no idea at all what Dan's been through, but he just hopes. He wants Dan to feel better, as much as he possibly can.  
  
If anyone deserves to feel contented, it's Dan.  
  
Except that the pressure of the upcoming appointment makes Dan far from contented. Very, very far. He's quiet, and spends much more time in his room alone. He drifts off into thought a lot mid-conversation and has to be drawn out of it with a nudge to the shoulder or a supportive smile. When it gets to two days before he follows Phil around the library in near-silence, like a black-clad, perpetually worried ghost.  
  
Phil doesn't know what to do.  
  
He's so scared of the helplessness of other people's feelings. He wishes he could reach inside people's heads and work out the tangled threads of everything making them upset and anxious, smooth them out and put them back in again, leaving a sea of smiles in his wake. But all Phil's actually capable of is awkward questions and weird, dad-ish style hovering, like he doesn't know what to do about his _own_ worry, never mind the other person's feelings.  
  
Never mind the fact that Dan's clearly stressed about his first appointment.  
  
All Phil does all week is anxiously ask if Dan's alright, and Dan says yes each time. It's like they're playing some weird game of chicken, and either Dan will crack first and tell Phil to leave him alone or Phil will finally say, _I know you're not fine, d'you wanna talk about it?_  
  
In the end, Dan cracks first.  
  
On the walk to the clinic, Phil keeps up a sort of nervous monologue of all of the supportive things he can think to say. He might be babbling just a little, made worse by the fact that Dan isn't actually saying anything in response. Dan hasn't said anything really, not since his quiet "yeah" when Phil had asked him earlier if he'd wanted a coffee.  
  
When they actually arrive at the clinic, he attempts a final pep talk.  
  
"I'm sure, like," Phil's waving his hands a little as he speaks. It's one of those nightmare scenarios that he hasn't been in for a while where he can hear himself talking endlessly, like he's trapped behind his eyes watching himself and all he wants is for the noise to stop. "Next time'll be, like, better. 'Cause you'll know what to expect. And maybe that'll make it easier, y'know? Maybe - maybe it won't be so hard next time, maybe...Maybe you'll feel better about a lot of stuff you, like, don't feel so great about."  
  
"You really think that's how this works," Dan says. His voice is sharp and unkind, lip curling a little, and Phil's heart sinks. He should've expected this. "You really think I'll talk it out with some magical therapist and then I'm suddenly fine, I'm suddenly - suddenly fixed. We don't even know if this'll help-"  
  
"But it's worth a try," Phil says, trying to be patient. "It's - it's better than keeping it all in-"  
  
"But it won't _fix_ me," Dan says. "It's not - it's not gonna bring me back to life, it's not gonna delete everything that ever happened to me. I'm not gonna come out of there and suddenly - suddenly we can date and everything's fine and we can fucking post pictures on Instagram-"  
  
"When did I say that?" Phil says, loudly. He realises what he'd sounded like and lowers his voice, ashamed. "I never - I never said anything like that. I just - I don't know what to say, I just want to help you, that's all." He pauses, feeling himself flush. "Look. I know it's not a fix, it's hard work, I _know_ that. You really think I'm pushing for this just - just for myself? So you'll, what, want to be with me? You really think that?"  
  
"Phil," Dan says, almost regretfully.  
  
"No, no, it's fine," Phil says, even though it isn't fine at all. "Look, you go in, you're gonna be late. I'll be out here when you're done."  
  
"I didn't mean it like that."  
  
Phil shakes his head. He's torn between being hurt and upset and acknowledging that today was always gonna be a hard day for Dan.  
  
"You should go in," He says, softly. "I'll be right here, I promise."  
  
Dan looks at him, nerves and apprehension and guilt evident on his face, and Phil can't help but pull him into a hug.  
  
"I'm sorry," Dan says, into his shoulder. "I'm so - God, it's not your fault, I just - I don't know how to feel about this, and I'm so fucking scared, and I...fuck, I shouldn't speak to you like that."  
  
"It's ok," Phil says, letting him go a little. "Just - I only ever thought you should do this for you, you know that, right? I don't care if we never...if you never want to...that doesn't fucking matter. I just think you'd feel a lot better if you stopped holding onto all of this awful shit and actually talked it out with someone."  
  
"I know," Dan says, and gives his arms a squeeze before he lets go. "I really am sorry."  
  
"I know," Phil says. Except Dan still has this anguished look on his face, so he adds, "Dan, it's fine. It's - a bad day, it was always gonna be bad." He reaches out and touches Dan's shoulder, giving it a supportive squeeze.  
  
Dan sighs, shaking his head.  
  
"See you in a bit?"  
  
"Right here," Phil says. He watches him walk away, shoulders hunched and hands in his pockets, and wishes he could be walking in there with him.  
  
-  
  
Dan sleeps in Phil's bed that night. Just sleeping, the coldness of him close by a balm against the warmer evening. Phil doesn't want to press for details about therapy so he doesn't.  
  
They go to the library and they train on the roof with PJ. Dan's talking again, even though he has another appointment coming up the next week. Phil chooses to interpret this as a good sign, even though Dan hasn't actually told him anything.  
  
Not that Phil expects to be told anything. Far from it. He just worries to himself about the things Dan doesn't say.  
  
-  
  
On Friday night, they're patrolling the upper floor in the library. Phil always thinks of Vi when he's walking up and down the shelves.  
  
They had to repaint the wall that she got blood on. Even though the paint is pristine Phil still sees it when he walks past, like an afterimage when he blinks, the memory waiting behind his eyelids.  
  
Of course, thinking about Violet only makes him think of Penny, and that particular stab of guilt still stings. Everything she'd said about Phil doing anything to help Dan had been absolutely right. He'd risked everything to make sure Dan got out of the blue zone unharmed and unnoticed, but he wouldn't do anything to help Violet in her trial.  
  
He wonders if the trial happened. He hasn't heard anything about it. He certainly hasn't seen Penny since that night at the library.  
  
He tears his eyes away from the plain white wall between shelves and keeps walking, checking each bookshelf, smiling awkwardly at the people sitting at quiet study tables.  
  
"It's not your fault, you know," Dan says, quietly. "I - you were thinking about her. I could tell. I - I mean, your heart was, like, weird, like you were nervous or freaking out, and - and I guessed, I dunno. Was I right?"  
  
"Yeah," Phil admits, sighing. "I just. She's still in prison and that's technically my fault."  
  
"That's technically _her_ fault," Dan corrects, with the same annoyed look on his face he always gets when Phil speaks negatively about himself. "You didn't make her go on a killing spree, Phil."  
  
"But I didn't help," Phil says. "I could've said she was enthralled-"  
  
"Which she _wasn't_ ," Dan says, firmly. "You did the right thing."  
  
"Except I'm a hypocrite," Phil says. "Because you - and - if I really stuck to my principles I would've left you at that party." An uncomfortable look flits across Dan's face, so he hurries to continue. "No, no, I don't mean it like that. I never would've. Never. I just. I'm a hypocrite. I helped you and I wouldn't help her."  
  
"It's - they're different circumstances," Dan says, slowly, after a moment. "None of which are your fault."  
  
Phil knows there's no use in arguing, so he doesn't say anything. He radios down to Di to tell her that the upper floor's clear, and they plan to swap in half an hour.  
  
"So," Dan says, when they're walking around again. "I, um. In my appointment we, er. We talked about some stuff, and, er. She gave me a task, I guess?" He snorts a little in amusement. "Death therapy has homework, can you believe it?"  
  
"Ok," Phil says, nodding. "What is it? Can I help with it?"  
  
Dan looks at him for a second.  
  
"No. I mean, yeah, I just. It was nice the way you, like, instantly wanted to help me there."  
  
"Obviously," Phil says, smiling.  
  
"Obviously," Dan repeats, smiling right back. "So, er. Later, can we...? Um. Basically it was suggested that I try and talk about something with you that, like, hurts me, or whatever. She didn't say to talk to _you_ specifically, by the way, it's not, like, a vendetta against you, or something. But, um. She said someone important, and that's you, so."  
  
Phil swallows, feeling hot and stupid. He tries to focus on the key parts of the sentence that weren't _someone important_.  
  
"Ok. I mean, I...what d'you wanna talk about?"  
  
"Dying," Dan says, instantly, like he rehearsed it. Then he laughs at himself. "Sorry. I just. I thought I'd get the worst thing out of the way first, like - like ripping off a plaster. And I thought I'd warn you beforehand 'cause - 'cause it's not gonna be fun to talk about, and you might not want to and that's fine, but-"  
  
"No, no, it's ok," Phil says, quickly. "I. It's fine, I'm. Is later ok?"  
  
"Yeah, of course," Dan says, rolling his eyes a little, fondly. "I wasn't gonna bust out my dying moments right here, Jesus, Phil."  
  
"I know," Phil says, trying to make a joke out of it.  
  
-  
  
In truth, he's scared. He thinks about what's coming for the rest of his shift.

He feels like he did when he was a kid and he'd peer under the bed to check for monsters and feel relieved when there were none.  
  
Except in this case, he knows the monster's there. There's no escaping the very real fact of Dan's death. It's something that's been staring him in the face this whole time, and he's tried to ignore it or pretend it wasn't there or force himself not to think about it, but ever since he found out Dan was dead it's been lurking in the back of his mind.  
  
What was it Dan'd said?  
  
_D'you ever just think about when you were a kid, and, like, you were doing something difficult and your mum'd just, do it for you. Or your dad, or whatever. And then shit like this is happening and you just kind of wanna get back to that_.  
  
Yeah. Phil knows exactly how that feels.  
  
-  
  
"I feel weird about this," Dan says, later. Phil made them both herbal tea when they got in. He didn't even know they _owned_ herbal tea, so he guesses it must be PJ's. "Also this tastes like leaves, what the fuck."  
  
Phil can't help but laugh, climbing into bed next to him and narrowly avoiding spilling his own tea on the sheets.  
  
"It's camomile," He says, taking a sip himself. "Oh God, it _does_ taste like leaves."  
  
Dan laughs.  
  
"I love some relaxing leaf juice right before a traumatic story. Jesus Christ, Phil."  
  
"I thought no caffeine was best!" Phil says. He valiantly tries to take another sip and just can't go through with it, quickly putting the cup down on his bedside table. "No, nope, this was a mistake."  
  
"You're so lame," Dan says, abandoning his own tea on the bedside table closest to him.  
  
"So," They both say simultaneously, and end up laughing at each other.  
  
"I just," Dan shakes his head. "I don't wanna do it. It feels weird."  
  
"Maybe just start," Phil suggests.  
  
"Your heart literally sounds like you're having a heart attack."  
  
"I'm," Phil feels his face grow hot. "Pretend that isn't happening."  
  
"God," Dan says, rubbing his hands over his face. "Fuck. Ok. Ok." He takes his hands away from his face and turns a little in bed so he's facing Phil, cross-legged knees bumping his thigh.  
  
"Ok," Phil says, hoping he sounds encouraging.  
  
"I was on my way home. I, um. I never felt all that great about myself when I was alive, you know? I...College was alright, and then I tried to go to uni and I just..." He falters and shrugs. "Not clever enough, I guess. I always sort of knew that, but..."  
  
"Dan."  
  
Dan smiles, small and sad.  
  
"It's true."  
  
Phil shakes his head. To his horror, he already feels a lump rising in his throat.  
  
"You're, like, the worst critic of yourself."  
  
Dan's still smiling and he shrugs, wryly.  
  
"Self loathing's my _brand_ , Phil."  
  
"Yeah, well," Phil says. "Mine's, like, reminding you that you're actually pretty great, so."  
  
Dan's sad smile softens into something more real.  
  
"Yeah, ok," He says, ducking his head a little. "Anyway, like. Are you sure you wanna hear this? I don't have to tell you, I - I know it's weird."  
  
"It'll help to say it out loud, right?" Phil says.  
  
"I- I mean," Dan pulls a face. "That's debatable. And it's not like she'd know if I didn't-"  
  
"Dan," Phil says, gently. He closes the gap between their hands and Dan slips their fingers together, squeezing tight.  
  
"Yeah, yeah, I know," Dan says. "I have to do it. It's - it's just letting what she did still affect me, by, like, keeping it in. Apparently."  
  
Phil doesn't say anything. He doesn't feel like there's anything he can say. He just strokes Dan's cold hand in his own and waits.  
  
"So I'm on my way home," Dan says, in a rush, staring down at their joined hands. "It was - it didn't happen at uni, I was...Did I ever tell you I went to uni twice?"  
  
Phil shakes his head. Dan laughs a little.  
  
"Yeah, well, I did. I was too stupid the first time and I took some time out and then - and then I had no idea what the fuck to do with my life and I was so fucking worried all the time I was like, right, uni, I can get back to that." He shakes his head. "So that was - I was home for Easter and..." He shakes his head. "I was fucking miserable, to be honest. I - I thought it'd be better the second time, I thought - I thought the first time I'd hated it just 'cause it was a shock and maybe the second time I'd feel better but - I still hated it. The drinking was fine." He laughs a little, humourlessly. "That was, like, _hey Dan, turns out if you just feed your insecurities a bunch of, like, vodka, they all go away and you can actually talk to people_." He shakes his head at himself. "Sounds so stupid now. Like, that was what I was worried about, can you imagine? Like - classes and being stupid and - and all this stupid shit with people at uni, I dunno."  
  
"That's fine, though," Phil says, quietly. "That's - I was like that at uni, I - it's not a crime to feel like that, Dan."  
  
"That's different."  
  
"How?"  
  
Dan shakes his head again, swallowing.  
  
"I came home and - and I didn't tell mum and dad," He says. "I hadn't told them anything. They were so proud of me for trying uni again, I couldn't - I didn't wanna disappoint them, not again. It was bad enough the first time. So I just...I kind of took it out on them, I guess?” He closes his eyes for a second, frowning at himself. “I...I felt like shit and I just stayed in my room or stayed out of the house, I...I was worried if I stuck around they'd be able to tell I'd messed up or they'd ask me about classes or something. They must've known something was wrong, but...” He shrugs. “So that's it. I was shitty and I avoided them and – and then I died.”

“There was no way you could've known-”

Dan shakes his head.

“I knew there'd been attacks in the park,” He says. “That's where I was. Me and mum had this argument...I dunno. She wanted to know what was up with me and I didn't wanna tell her. She got upset.” His voice trembles. “I – I just stood there watching her get upset and I – I didn't feel _anything_. I was just – like there was _nothing_ in me, like I couldn't even feel bad that I'd upset her. I resented her so much, like...I was so selfish, I was like, why is she upset? What does _she_ have to be upset about? When she was just worried about me-”

Phil reaches for him without even thinking about it and Dan just falls into him, shaking a little when Phil puts his arms around him.

“You didn't know,” He says. “You – you – there's no way you could've known, Dan.”

“Doesn't matter,” Dan says, pulling back a little. His cheeks are wet. “I shouldn't have treated her like that, it doesn't matter that I didn't know.”

“You were struggling,” Phil says, his voice trembling a little.. “You were keeping it all in, you – you put too much pressure on yourself.”

Dan doesn't say anything, breathing unsteadily. Phil reaches up and wipes his wet face with the cuff of his sweatshirt, and when he touches his hand to the side of Dan's face Dan closes his eyes.

“I, um,” He blinks, eyelashes clumped together with tears. “After the argument, I left the house. I just wanted to be anywhere else, I – I didn't care where. I felt like – like I'd fucked up everything, like - uni was shit, and I'd made being at home shit too. I'd – I dunno, there was nowhere else to go.”

“So you went to the park,” Phil says, quietly.

Dan shakes his head.

“Tried to get drunk first,” He says. “But I hadn't brought enough money out with me. It was – Saturday, I think? I was gonna walk into town but – I didn't wanna see anyone. And I could just – I could just hear it running around and around my head, everything I – everything mum'd said, and – and how upset she'd been, and – and how I knew I was gonna have to tell her the truth and that was gonna make it worse.” His eyes are distant, like they're seeing things that Phil never could – seeing that last day in his mind. “I decided to just go home. It'd been, like, an hour, I think?” He sniffs. “Didn't realise I was in the park til I was halfway through, it's like...like my feet just took me there, like I was running on autopilot. If I'd just thought about it, if I'd – if I'd just been honest with them the second I got back...”

Phil strokes his cheek with his thumb, bringing his other hand up to touch Dan's shoulder. He doesn't know what else he can do. He feels so helpless, able to do nothing but watch Dan's grief from the outside. All he wants is for Dan to be happy, for him to have nothing to worry about, but he knows it's not possible.

Seeing him be in this much pain hurts. Phil's throat is thick and every time he swallows it's tight and painful with everything he's keeping inside. But that's nothing compared to how Dan must be feeling, he thinks, watching Dan close his eyes again to the stroke of Phil's fingers on his face.

“I was scared,” He says, quietly. “I, er. You know me, the dark's never really been my thing, and the park wasn't lit up at all. I tried to use my phone light, but...” He shrugs. “I could've just turned back. Like, literally, I remember looking over my shoulder and I could see the street behind me, like, lit up, about...ten metres away, maybe? But I didn't. I'm so fucking stupid, I just...”

“You're not stupid,” Phil says.

Dan laughs, watery and sad sounding.

“Yeah, ok,” He says. “Except if that was true I'd still be alive. I – I would've been fine at uni the first time, or I would've been honest with mum and dad, or-”

“None of that means you're stupid,” Phil says. “It means you're – you're h-”

He falters.

“Human,” Dan says, sniffing, tone of voice still full of forced humour. “Right, yeah. Except I fucked that up, didn't I?”

Phil doesn't say anything. He doesn't think anything he says can help, not really. He just strokes Dan's face with his thumb. After a moment and a shaky breath, Dan reaches up and touches Phil's wrist, thumb resting softly over his pulse point.

“So I'm walking through the park,” Dan says, after clearing his throat. “I just wanted to go home, I – I wasn't thinking, I was still...I was still focused on the argument and – and everything else. So I kept walking, and – and then...Suddenly someone's grabbing me from behind, like, holding me really tightly, and I – I tried to scream, right? 'Cause – 'cause the street's right there, and if I can make enough noise someone'll hear me. And I'm thinking, they can have my wallet, they can – they can have my phone, whatever...” He gulps. “And then – then she's pulling my head to one side by my hair and I can – I can feel like, cold breath.” He shudders, as though he can still feel it. “And I knew then. Vamp attack. And I forgot everything they ever told us in school, or – or anything I'd read online, I – I forgot all of it. I was so fucking scared, I just – I knew I was gonna die.”

He blinks and a tear falls, but his voice is steady.

“And they don't tell you how much it hurts, do they? It's not – I dunno about you but I knew so many vamp groupies when I was alive and – and they literally never fucking mention it. Just fucking going on about how hot it is, like, shut the fuck up, it fucking _hurts_. It burnt, it was like – like being on fire. And I got less and less scared the more it went on, I was, like – I was losing it, I – I kept thinking about mum and – and dad and how they'd never know – well, anything. That I'd never get to say sorry.” He shakes his head. “They say that in the leaflets, you know. When you're being drained you, um, lose touch with reality.”

Phil nods.

“Yeah,” Dan says. “And I was, like, thinking about being a kid, and coming to the park. I, er.” He sniffs. “I was thinking of running there – and – and being like four years old and too scared to go on the climbing frame. And I remembered my dad, like, coming and standing by it and – and of course it's a kid's playpark, right, so...So he was practically taller than it. And he stood by it and he looked at me and said that if I wanted to climb he'd stand right there, and...” His voice breaks. “And if I fell he'd – he'd catch me, or – or mum'd catch me. They wouldn't – wouldn't let me fall.”

Phil doesn't realise he's crying until he blinks and feels warmth on his face.

“Oh, Phil,” Dan says. His eyes are glinting wetly in the lamplight. “Jesus, don't, you'll-”

“It's fine,” Phil says, his voice sounding croaky and awful. He lets Dan go for a second to roughly wipe his eyes. “It's fine, don't worry about me.”

Dan blinks rapidly, wiping his own eyes.

“Fucking look at us,” He says. “I'm – I'm sorry-”

“Jesus, Dan,” Phil says, his voice still unsteady when he reaches for him, pulling him into a tight hug. He squeezes his eyes shut, breathing in the smell of Dan's hair, thinking about that little boy on the climbing frame – about the scared guy dying in the dark, about how they're both Dan.

He thinks about the guy whose hand Phil had held while he was dying, and how Dan hadn't even had that – he'd had to lie there alone while his heart gave out, in the cold and the dark, in the park where he'd been happy as a kid.

It hurts him more than he ever thought it could that Dan died like that – that he had to go through that. It makes Phil want to hold him close, like he can somehow keep it all away if he just holds Dan tightly enough.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's 4am. I am a void of nothingness. But I hope you guys enjoy the chapter <3
> 
> IMPORTANT NOTE: this fic came third in its category in the phanfic awards!! Thank you all so so much for reading, for commenting, leaving kudos, and even voting if you did. I don't care either way, I just want to thank you all for being so brilliant. I wouldn't be awake right now writing if you guys didn't make me feel so awesome about it. Thank you all so much <3
> 
> There will be mistakes ahead, but I'll fix them later today. And the quality of writing is nowhere near as good as I want it to be, I'm so sorry. Like I said, void of nothingness

"You can't drive," Dan says, getting into the van.

Phil's been idling on the curb for the past fifteen minutes, trying to recall driving lessons from when he was eighteen. He managed to make it to the building where Dan's therapy sessions are being held without too many incidents, but his palms are unpleasantly sweaty and he might've messed up more than once on the journey and had some old woman yell at him out of the window of her car.

"I mean, I drove _here_ , so," Phil says.

Dan looks at him and doesn't put his seatbelt on.

"Peej let you borrow this," He says. "Did you tell _him_ you can't drive?"

"I never told _you_ I can't drive-"

"You told me you hate it and it stresses you out," Dan points out. "You know we live, like, two minutes away, right?"

"I know," Phil says. He kills the engine and eases his damp hands off the wheel. "How did it go?"

Dan exhales, tilting his head back against the seat.

"Better than last week. Still fucking awful." He looks at Phil, eyes flickering from his face to his hands, clenching and unclenching in his lap. "You gonna distract me by killing both of us on the drive home?"

"We're not driving home," Phil says. "I - I was gonna - we're gonna go somewhere. As, like. A fun thing, I dunno."

"A&E?" Dan asks, small smile on his face.

Phil ends up smiling too, rolling his eyes.

"I can drive, shut up."

"You literally look like you sat twenty exams while I was gone."

"I can drive!"

If Dan can go through therapy then Phil can drive the two of them somewhere. He knows it's stupid, it's not like he has anything to prove, he just wants to do this for Dan. To do _something_ for him, something mindless and distracting and painfully _nice_.

"Let's swap," Dan says, after a moment, touching Phil's arm. "I can definitely drive."

"Dan."

"Where are we going?"

Phil sighs.

"I have maps on my phone, but I want to-"

"Get out, come on," Dan says, throwing the passenger side door open.

It's a bright, warm day, and he squints a little as he climbs out of the van, shutting the door behind him. Phil sighs and gets out himself.

"It's not a surprise if you're driving us there," Phil points out, when they're headed to the motorway a few minutes later.

It turns out Dan hadn't been kidding about being able to drive, although he'd had a few false starts when they'd been pulling away from the curb. Phil supposes he hasn't driven since he died, but he doesn't really want to ask. He just watches Dan changing gear, the little furrow of concentration on his face when he looks ahead through the windscreen.

"I mean, I am surprised right now," Dan says, shooting Phil a grin. "I'm driving Peej's van and we're probably gonna crash, that's, like, not exactly where I thought I'd be when I got up this morning."

"Shut up," Phil says, fondly. "We don't have to go if you don't want to, I just-"

"I haven't been to the beach in years," Dan says. Phil had guessed as much, which was why he'd thought it might be a nice idea, but now he's not sure. "I never even - even before I died, it'd been a while."

"I just thought..." Phil says, with a shrug. "Ice cream. I dunno."

Dan nods, switching lanes.

"Didn't PJ want to come too?"

Phil blinks. He hadn't exactly asked PJ. In fact, when he'd asked to borrow the van to take Dan somewhere, PJ had raised his eyebrows and asked if Phil wanted him to stay out of the flat for the evening.

"Or headphones, I guess," He'd mused, when Phil finally realised what he was implying. "I have headphones."

"Just the van is fine," Phil had said, firmly, then he'd realised how that sounded when PJ's eyebrows climbed even closer to his hairline. "Not - no, I mean - to _drive_ somewhere, that's it."

Peej had just laughed.

"Er, no," Phil says, now, feeling himself flush. "I, er. He was busy."

Dan just shrugs. They're quiet for a moment, then Dan glances over at him again.

"Hey," He says, softly. "Thanks. For, er. I dunno. Thinking of this. Doing this. Whatever."

"I mean, I'm not actually _doing_ anything," Phil points out.

"Even so," Dan says, with a small smile. "Thanks."

Phil just nods.

He's been lying awake these past few nights - some spent sleeping alone, some spent with Dan by his side, curled into a ball like a little kid - thinking about how he can help Dan. The fact of the matter is that he can't, not the way he wants to, but he can ease everything in some small way. Dan's right, therapy isn't a quick fix and nothing's gonna instantly make him better, but Phil wants to do things for him anyway, even if they won't help.

-

It takes about an hour and a half to drive to the coast. It'd take less time, but they end up stopping for snacks.

"Do I want onion rings," Dan says, frowning thoughtfully at the rack of crisps in front of them. "Or onion rings?"

"I want ice cream," Phil says.

"We could've gone to Tesco and bought ice cream," Dan points out. "And eaten it at home."

"Well, yeah," Phil says, lamely. "But seaside ice cream's always better."

Dan laughs, eyes bright.

"Fuck off," He says. "It's, like, a million times more expensive and it melts down your wrist in the sun in about twenty seconds."

"Exactly," Phil says, grinning at him. " _That's_ the dream."

"I'm getting onion rings anyway," Dan says, and grabs some from the nearest rack.

They walk around to where the drinks are, and there's a separate fridge full of blood substitutes. As they approach some girl in a long flowery skirt, laughing about something with her friend, casually opens the fridge and grabs a bag, disappearing off to the counter.

"Want some?" Phil asks, lightly, wandering over to the fridge.

"Maybe a bag," Dan says, with a shrug, snagging two bottles of Ribena from the other fridge. "This ok?"

Phil looks over at him, drenched in the washed-out glow of the fridge in front of him. His hair's a little wild today.

Phil's heart kind of hurts, just looking at him.

"What?" Dan asks, nervously. His hands are full so he can't nervously pat his hair down, but Phil can tell that he wants to. It's weird how the knowledge of something so small can make him feel as light as air.

"Nothing," He says, awkwardly, averting his eyes. "Nothing, I. You look good today."

"I look like I got dragged through a hedge," Dan says, but he's smiling anyway.

At the till, Dan dumps the drinks and the onion rings down, and Phil puts down the blood substitute and fumbles in his pocket for his wallet.

"I'm the worst date," Dan says when Phil's hunched over the card machine. "You know if I had the money I'd get this, right?"

The machine beeps and Phil grabs their bag of stuff, saying a vague thank you to the cashier.

"I," He babbles as they leave the store, passing families and people headed to the bathroom on theit way out to the car park. "I didn't - I just thought it'd be something nice we could-"

"It's fine," Dan says, gently. They pass through the automatic doors and the sun seems to have tripled in intensity while they've been inside - even Phil cringes. "Jesus, fuck, _that's_ not fine, ouch-"

"Here," Phil says, handing him his own sunglasses from where they're hooked on his shirt collar. They're blue and they look strange on Dan, but Phil's too hung up on the whole date thing to roast him for it right this second. "I know you said you didn't want to and - that's fine, I just thought this'd be a nice day out, I-"

"It's ok," Dan insists. His expression's unreadable now that Phil can't see his eyes. " _I'm_ the one who said date, not you."

"I just," Phil says, wanting to make sure that he's clear. "Whatever you want is the most important thing, and I'd never - not if you didn't want to, or..." He falters and tries again. "I just want you to be alright, and - and that's all that matters, nothing - nothing else really-"

"Phil," Dan says, patiently, and actually takes hold of his hand. It feels strange, the two of them standing by the automatic doors at a service station in the baking sunshine, with people bustling to and fro past them. Phil almost feels like what they have is private, and Dan holding his hand out here for any random passers by to see feels like something else entirely. " _I_ said date, ok? Me. That was - I was joking but, like..." He falters. "I'm not. I had this idea of, like, waiting until I was ok. Like eventually I'll be fine, and - and normal, and then I can get on with my life. But." He shakes his head, curling his fingers closer around Phil's. "I can't just go around _waiting_ , you know? I'm - I'm dead, and - and nothing's ever gonna be normal again. Waiting to feel _fine_ is just - it's just postponing everything, it's an excuse 'cause I'm scared to fuck this up and I'm scared that - that I don't deserve this."

"Dan," Phil says, squeezing his hand tight. Dan squeezes back.

"It's just. Maybe I won't be ok. Maybe - no, no, it's not a maybe, I _know_ nothing can fix me. Therapy can't fix me, it just - it just helps. And I don't want you to think that, like, two sessions in I've made this miraculous recovery, like, I still - I still feel like shit most of the time. I just..." He swallows. "Not letting myself do this feels like...it's like punishing myself. It's - it's waiting around for something that isn't coming. This piece of shit isn't gonna start working again," He moves their joined hands to his chest, smiling sadly. "It's fucking dead, you know? _I'm_ dead. But like...that doesn't mean everything else has to stop too."

Phil can hardly dare to breathe. He's squinting in the sunlight at Dan - Dan, whose hair is glinting different colours in the light, whose posture is awful and whose clothes are unseasonably black as always. Dan, who is probably the most beautiful person Phil's ever seen in his life.

He thinks about catching sight of a tall figure at a vampire representation demonstration, an event that feels like it happened years ago, and selling him a badge. It's surreal to think that that's the same person, this person who's so important, the same Dan who's holding his hand to his chest like he's afraid to let go.

"Sorry," Dan says, awkwardly, when the silence stretches on too long. "I know that's a lot."

"Shut up," Phil says, blinking rapidly, and pulls him in for a hug, plastic bag hooked onto his wrist bashing into his elbow. "You deserve everything, you know that? You - you always did."

"Phil," Dan asks, pulling back a little, his smile warm. "God, I swear I always upset you somehow."

Phil reaches up and pushes the sunglasses onto Dan's forehead so he can see his eyes properly.

"Not upset," He says, even though his eyes are prickling and his throat feels thick. "If you don't wanna do this we don't have to do this."

"Nah, you don't get out of it that easily," Dan says. His hand is a welcome pressure on Phil's back - Phil feels like he might just fall over without it. "I want shitty overpriced ice cream by the sea now."

"That's not what I meant."

"I know," Dan says, quietly. "I just. I'm not saying it's gonna be easy or - or I'm not gonna be a fucking mess, and - and I can't promise I won't mess it all up, but - maybe this could be a date. If you want it to be."

"Course I want it to be," Phil says.

A kid starts crying near them and they step apart awkwardly, startled. Phil doesn't know who starts it but they're laughing all of a sudden, just falling to pieces because of some poor crying kid, and two women passing give them strange sidelong looks that only make them laugh more.

"I'm not - I'm not laughing at you," Phil says after a minute, wiping overwhelmed tears from his eyes.

"No, no, to be honest this is the accepted response when I ask people on dates," Dan says, still grinning.

"It's just - I dunno, I wasn't expecting it-"

"What, you think I had a plan? I didn't expect it either, you're the one who decided to go to the sea."

"As a surprise," Phil says. "I didn't, we didn't..." And he doesn't know why he's trying to explain himself anymore. He doesn't think there's any need. He feels so happy that he thinks he could probably just start laughing again any second, so he just smiles at Dan and without letting himself second guess he reaches out and takes hold of his hand. "Whatever. We should get going before they run out of ice cream."

"I don't think the entire beach and the surrounding area are gonna run out of ice cream, Phil," Dan says, rolling his eyes a little, but he's smiling.

They hold hands all the way back to the van.

-

The next evening, Phil buys flowers.

He doesn't know what makes him do it. Actually, that's a lie. He knows exactly what it is. It's the thought of Dan's smile when he'd said, _this could be a date, if you want it to be_. It's the thought of that whole perfect afternoon, walking by the seafront and talking about nothing at all, just holding hands while the boundless sea hissed and rushed beyond them.

"This is weird," Dan had said, when they'd finished their ice cream. When Phil had looked at him, worried he'd messed up somehow, he clarified. "Not like that, I mean. It doesn't feel weird, so - so that's weird."

Phil had felt like that too. There'd been nothing odd or awkward about holding Dan's hand as they walked along, it just felt...good. It felt long overdue. Like part of Phil had been waiting for this for so long that when it came along it just felt _right_.

He's never bought flowers for anyone before. He always felt too awkward, like it meant he was showing that he was more invested than the other person. For the first time, he doesn't feel like that. He thinks maybe he and Dan are just as invested as one another.

It helps that the flowers are reduced, left in a bucket at Tesco with a yellow sticker on them. Phil picks them up impulsively because they're pretty and he likes them, and by the time he's taking them through self service with the loaf of bread he'd actually come in for he feels guilty. Dan doesn't deserve cut-price flowers, no matter how pretty they are. He deserves the expensive ones, the roses that're near the front that have weird fake gems studded on the petals for some reason. _That's_ what Dan deserves.

Except those roses are sort of terrifying and weird, like something that'd be in the Capitol in _The Hunger Games_. Not to mention the fact that when Phil looks up, wondering about cancelling his order and rushing back to pick better flowers, he meets the stony, impatient faces of the people waiting for the self service checkout. That alone makes the decision for him and he ends up buying them anyway and rushing out of there, shuddering a little in the cool evening air.

He spends the walk home trying to pick the reduced sticker off the flower paper. When it won't come off, he thinks about something nice to say, something funny that'll make Dan laugh, make it seem sort of ok that he didn't go for the expensive flowers.

About halfway home, he gives up on the sticker and drifts into weird daydreams about them going on a second date.

"I mean, the first one's going ok," Dan had said, when the sun had waned a little and they'd wandered back to the van. Phil had sand between his toes from paddling in the sea, and he wriggled them uncomfortably in his socks. "So, like. We could have another one, I guess."

Phil had beamed at him, all thoughts of sand in his shoes forgotten in the face of Dan's words and his almost bashful smile.

"I mean, if you want to."

"Well," Dan said, eyes bright. "I'm free tomorrow if you are."  
Phil smiles to himself just remembering. He wonders where they'd go on a second date. He wonders what he'd wear.

He wonders if Dan's the type of guy who doesn't mind a kiss at the end of a real date. The thought makes Phil feel hot and stupid, remembering that near miss in the kitchen. Maybe Dan isn't that type of guy, though. It's not like Phil can ask about it, either.

_Sorry_ , he imagines himself saying, ugly and red-faced and sweaty. _D'you, um...is kissing, like, good?_

_Yeah_ , he thinks, doubtfully, as he unlocks the main door and lets himself in, going up the stairs. _That'd go well_.

He fumbles with the bag when he's letting himself into the flat, startled to find the living room light is off, like nobody's in. He pauses in the doorway when he hears raised voices.

"Just stop, Phil's gonna be back soon-"

"All the more reason to be fast," Dan's voice floats through from his open bedroom door. "Don't call him. Don't you dare call him."

"Or what?" PJ's voice is sharp, challenging. "You'll bite me?"

Silence. Phil stands there in the doorway, hand sweating on the handle of the shopping bag, the sweet, leafy smell of the flowers drifting across his nose.

"I didn't," Dan says, voice suddenly quieter. "I wouldn't." He pauses. "Too late, anyway."

"What?"

"He's back," Dan says, wearily.

That's enough to make Phil spring into action, letting the front door shut behind him and moving towards the source of their voices.

He doesn't know what he expects to find in Dan's room, but it isn't what he sees - Dan's hunched over a backpack on his bed, apparently in the act of packing it, while PJ stands by the door chewing his thumbnail.

"What's up?" Phil asks, heart beating uncomfortably fast. "Dan?"

"He's leaving," PJ tells him, before Dan can even open his mouth. "He's just - he's just going, and he won't _listen_ to me-"

"You're," Phil stares at him. Dan avoids his eyes for a second, a t-shirt clutched tight in his hands. "What? Why?"

"Doesn't matter," Dan mutters, shaking his head.

"What?" Phil feels like he can feel the blood rushing in his ears. "What d'you mean you're leaving? What-?"

"Just don't," Dan says, quietly, meeting his eye for a second before his gaze skitters away again. He grabs a bunch of socks from the bed and starts shoving them into the backpack too.

"Don't what?" Phil can hear how frantic and awful his voice sounds and he hates it. He abandons the shopping bag by the door and goes over to the bed, eyes trained on Dan's face. "Dan, stop. Look at me. Just - just think about this for a second. What's-? What happened? What's wrong?"

Dan closes his eyes, head bent, his entire body tense as a bowstring.

"She found me," He says, his voice barely a breath. "She knows where I am, Phil." He makes eye contact with Phil and Phil's heart is suddenly racing, feeling hot and terrified, skin prickling. "She could be here any minute. I have to go."

Phil feels like the earth just got turned on its head. He feels like he might throw up. He thinks of his weapons crate and all the fights he's ever had and suddenly feels very small and helpless.

"No," He says. "No, stop. You're not going anywhere."

"Sorry, did you not hear what I just said?" Dan says, voice rising. "She knows where I am, Phil, she could be here any second, and here is where I can't fucking be, alright?"

"I'll fight her," Phil says, grabbing Dan's wrist. " _We'll_ fight her, it'll be-"

"She'll enthral me and I'll kill you," Dan says, flatly. "So, alright, if you wanna die, then sure, that's-"

"Surely," PJ says. Phil startles a little, almost having forgotten he was there. "Surely if she knows you're here then - then she'll come here anyway. I mean - even if you go, she - she'll track your scent here, and..." He trails off.

Dan covers his eye with his hand and fists a hand in his hair for good measure.

"Yeah," He says, defeated. "Yep, Peej, you're right. I - I killed the two of you anyway. Even if I go, I killed the pair of you."

"I'd say we're doing pretty well for dead people," PJ says, in an attempt at light heartedness.

Phil moves over to Dan, tugging his wrist gently 'til his white-knuckled grip on his own hair loosens, other hand dropping from his eyes.

"Peej is right," He says, softly. "We're not dead. Nowhere near." He pauses, swallows, throat feeling thick. He's panicking, he knows he is, his whole body trembling like a phone on vibrate, but somehow his voice is remarkably steady. "We'll all go."

"Don't take the piss, Phil," Dan says, wiping his eyes angrily.

"He's right," PJ says. "We can go in the van. Move around enough, make it harder for her to track you. We can do it."

Dan shakes his head and paces a little, up and down in the space between the bed and the wall.

"She'll find us," He says. "It'd just be prolonging the inevitable, you know that, don't you?"

"Better that than sticking around here like sitting ducks," PJ says. "Or - or you running off alone."

"He's right," Phil says, feeling so much gratitude for Peej in that moment that it sort of hurts. "Dan, come on."

Dan shakes his head.

"You guys have - lives and - and jobs. The _library_ , Phil."

"You're the one taking the piss if you think the library matters more to me than you," Phil says, steadily.

Dan meets his gaze for a long moment before he looks away.

"I'll go and grab some stuff," PJ says, after a moment. "Meet you guys down at the van in ten?"

"Yep," Phil says.

Dan's back to shoving stuff in his backpack. Phil says his name, quietly, but he ignores him.

"I didn't want this," He says. "I knew, I - the day you asked me to move in, I knew I was risking your lives and I moved in anyway, I -"

"I wanted you to move in," Phil reminds him. "I - I wanted it and I don't regret it. I don't regret any of it."

Dan doesn't look at him.

"You'd better pack some stuff," He says, staring down at his own bag.

-

They drive for hours.

PJ stares determinedly at the windscreen, Phil sitting next to him feeling like he's in a dream. Occasionally he glances back past the curtain that separates the front of the van from the back, worriedly looking at where Dan's sitting hunched over on the mattress there, hands knotted behind his head, gaze trained on the floor.

They drive and they drive, with the sun glaring through the windscreen. When they hit traffic, the only indication that PJ is as nervous as Phil feels is the tapping of his fingers against the steering wheel.

"Do you think we can stop?" He asks, after a few hours.

Phil shrugs.

"I mean, she can only drive after us, can't she?" He says, quietly, looking back worriedly at Dan. "And she doesn't know which way we're going. She doesn't even know where we were going _from_."

"She'll have found the flat by now," Dan says, hollowly, raising his head.

Phil looks back at him, feeling desperate. He wishes he could slip back there and put his arm around him, hold his hand tight and tell him everything will be ok. He can't, though. He feels like from the moment he got back last night Dan has been closed off to him, and every bright word and soft touch they'd awkwardly shared yesterday is truly a thing of the past.

He swallows. There are more important things to consider now.

"Where did she see you?" He asks. "Are you sure it was her?"

"I wouldn't make you guys do this if I wasn't sure," Dan says, quietly.

"I didn't say that," Phil says, his heart sinking.

Dan sighs, rubbing a hand over his eyes. He looks worn out, even though they've only been travelling for a few hours.

"Sorry," He says, voice small and defeated. "I know it's not your fault."

"I know," Phil says, trying to put as much feeling into the words as possible.

Dan looks at him, his expression unreadable.

"Remember the guy at the party?" He says, slowly. "The one who - who told you about Sam."

"The guy I hit with a tranquiliser."

"Yeah, him. I ran into him. Said someone'd been asking after me and he'd told her everything. I thought..." He frowns at himself. "I thought he was fucking around with me, even though his description of her was legit. And then - then I saw her on the way home."

"So she didn't see you?" PJ asks. Dan jerks in surprise, as though he'd forgotten PJ was there.

"Er, no," He says. "It was across the square, where - where those posters were," He adds, to Phil. "As soon as I saw her I ran and didn't look back, but - but it'd only have been a matter of time before she found the flat, or, like, caught my scent or whatever. The whole time we were leaving she could've shown up at any moment."

He runs his hands through his hair agitatedly, staring at the floor again.

"But she didn't," Phil says, practically hanging over the back of the chair now in his desire to be close to Dan, to comfort him. "We're fine, we're ok-"

"For now."

"And if she finds us, we fight her," Phil says, firmly, with a braveness in his tone that he doesn't know if he truly feels. When Dan doesn't look at him, he turns to PJ with a sigh. "If we stop somewhere we'll just take it in turns to keep a look out, that's all."

"Sounds like a plan," PJ says, helpfully.

Phil nods, then looks back at Dan again, still looking dejectedly at his shoes.

"We'll be ok," He says. Dan actually looks up then, his expression fearful. "I promise, everything's gonna be fine."

-

Their time on the run lasts for a week.

Dan told Phil not to call it being on the run, but he doesn't know what else to call it. It seems like the most accurate term, anyway. They drive around all day in a van that guzzles diesel, never stopping in a new place for more than a few hours. PJ uses the stack of outdated A-Zs in his glove compartment to plot their destinations at random.

Phil doesn't know if it's helping. He doesn't know if they're outsmarting her or if she's hot on their heels. That's what drives him crazy after the first night - just how much they don't know. He and PJ don't know what she looks like, what her name is, they couldn't pick her out of a crowd - they just have Dan, whose demeanour is as guilt-ridden and anxious as it was the day they started off on this endless journey.

They sleep in shifts, taking it in turns to keep watch. On the third day, after three nights spent sitting awake, Dan finally falls asleep.

The watch falls to Phil, but he's not particularly worried. They've stopped on a hillside in the middle of nowhere, with one road leading up to it. Phil keeps a look out for headlights, but he feels strangely safe here, amongst the pleasant smell of wet grass.

In the morning, PJ makes coffee.

"It's like that TV show," Phil says, watching PJ set up the camping stove on the ground. There's a cool breeze, but there's a smell in the air that makes Phil think it's probably gonna be a hot day. "The one where people go on the run for, like, money."

"Dunno if I've seen it," PJ says, setting the kettle on the lit stove with a little clunk and joining Phil in the back of the van.

"There was this whole thing a while back 'cause this guy won by hiding out in a blue zone. It was, like, against the rules or something, even though they hadn't actually put it in the rules. Guess they didn't expect anyone to think of doing that."

"I guess," PJ agrees. He yawns, scrubbing a hand over his face. "Why, d'you think we should do that? Hide out in a blue zone somewhere?"

Phil shrugs. He looks over his shoulder at the lump in the blankets that is Dan, curled up into a tiny ball. There's no way to tell if he's awake or still asleep. Phil hopes desperately for the latter.

"Dunno if, like, it's harder to sniff vamps out if they're with other vamps. You know? D'you think we're making it harder for him to hide?"

PJ shrugs.

"Don't think so. Like, there's a ton of humans, right? Surely we make it harder 'cause - 'cause it's hard to tell who's who, or something."

Phil doesn't know. He knows he'll be able to offer much more after he's had coffee - the kettle on the little gas stove sputters and hisses as it heats up. Phil has a weird moment, watching the kettle, of remembering that morning when he and Peej had met. That kettle had rolled into the road and Phil had fetched it for him, and now they're here. He wonders what would've happened if he'd just carried on walking and not interfered - let the kettle roll into the road and carried on in his quest to buy milk. PJ might be asleep now in some other flat, with other friends, in no danger at all.

"I'm sorry," He blurts out, randomly. PJ looks at him, frowning. "I - I'm sorry you got dragged into all this."

"I didn't get dragged into anything," PJ says, calmly. "You - you guys are my friends. You help your friends, that's just, like, friend rules, right there."

"Yeah, but..." Phil can't bring himself to voice his concerns - voice his worry that all of this running around is just putting off the inevitable, like Dan said. They have to fight the vamp who turned Dan sooner or later. No matter how much he keeps insisting otherwise to keep Dan calm, they can't run forever.

"But nothing," PJ says, firmly. "I'm glad I'm here."

Phil doesn't know what to say, beyond the fact that he's glad PJ's here, too. It feels too selfish to say - to be glad that PJ's here, in danger with him and Dan.

"I'm glad I met you," He says, instead.

PJ looks at him, startled.

"I'm glad, too," He says, and smiles.

-

  
"Smells like vamps," Dan says, the next day when they stop at a service station somewhere near Wales. He spends most of their days driving hiding in the back of the van, and today is no exception, but he'd got a blast of outside air when PJ had opened the driver's side door. "Not her, though. There's just a few around."

"Well, I won't be long," PJ says. "You guys want anything? Coffee, Phil?"

"Coffee would be great," Phil says, helplessly.

The silence that PJ leaves behind when he shuts the van door behind him is deafening. Phil's legs are cramping up - more than anything he wants to get out and stretch them, to walk with PJ and buy coffee and joke around together. More than anything he wants to be somewhere with a shower and a real bed and proper food.

More than anything, he wants Dan to smile. It's weird even considering that they're at a service station, remembering their conversation at one just over four days ago. It feels like years have passed since then.

He rubs a hand over his scratchy chin, grimacing a little. A shave, that's another thing he wants. A shave, a shower and a bowl of cereal. Not that he'd breathe a word - he knows PJ is more than used to a nomadic lifestyle, and if Dan heard him expressing his discontent it'd just add to the guilt that sits so heavily on his shoulders that he hasn't sat up straight for days.

"Being on the run looks better on Peej," He muses, out loud.

"We're not on the run," Dan says, listlessly.

"Fine, travelling with no specific destination," Phil corrects himself. He looks out across the car park, watching a man walking along eating McDonald's fries. When he looks back at Dan, he's lying on his back on the mattress, eyes an indistinct glint in the dark of the back of the van. "You have to stop beating yourself up about this."

Dan doesn't say anything. At first Phil thinks he won't, but then he exhales, the sound loud in the quiet van.

"It's my fault the pair of you got dragged into this. If I'd just - if I'd-"

"If you'd what?" Phil says. "If you'd just let yourself be miserable? If you'd never - if we'd never been friends? 'Cause that's what it comes down to, Dan. And I dunno about you, but I think driving around for a few days is a small price to pay for, like, knowing you."

"It won't just be a few days," Dan says, finally sitting up. "She's not gonna stop and she won't give up."

"You stayed in one place for months and months," Phil pointed out. "And it took her a long while to find you. You don't - she might not have even found the flat, she might have just moved on, she might - she might not even be following us."

"You don't know that."

"And you don't know that she's two seconds behind us, either!" Phil says. "Just - me and Peej, we're here 'cause we wanna be here, alright? Not 'cause we're being held to ransom, or 'cause we have no choice - we're here because we want to be."

He turns back to the car park. There's a woman now, walking a dog on the patch of grass they're parked near, smoking a cigarette. Her hair's blowing in the wind, and Phil watches it.

He wonders about Di. He'd left her a vague answerphone message, but he doesn't know if he'd explained everything enough. Not that he could've explained. He called Martyn too, told him in the vaguest possible terms that he was going away for a few weeks, and not to tell mum.

"What the fuck," Martyn had said.

"Everything's fine," Phil had said, in as bright a tone as he could muster. "It's - it's just a trip, that's all. Me and Peej, I told you about him."

"But Phil-"

"I'll send you a postcard," Phil had said. It'd been enough to assuage his worries for the moment, but he'd still sounded suspicious when he'd eventually hung up. Phil just hopes he'll be true to his word and not actually tell mum. Not that she'd be able to tell what was really going on just from Martyn's second-hand explanation, but part of him feels like she'd just _know_ , somehow.

Not for the first time this week, he wonders if going home would help. They could hole up at his childhood home and enlist anyone in his family still capable of holding a gun to wait for the inevitable arrival of the woman who killed Dan.

Of course, that'd involve actually introducing Dan to his parents and somehow convincing them that he's worth defending. Phil doesn't know which prospect is more terrifying - that or actually facing off against the vampire they're running from.

-

On their seventh day, they end up running out of diesel on the outskirts of a village.

"No no no," PJ says when the engine sputters halfway down a narrow country lane. "No, no, not here, no-"

"Just a bit further," Phil says, like that'll help.

"Turn up here," Dan says, peering over the back of the seats, his head between the two of them. "Up there, into this field."

"But this is the middle of nowhere," PJ says, somewhat desperately. "It's not like there's a petrol station down the road-"

"And we have camping stuff and food, so it's fine," Dan says, for once actually seeming calm about a bad situation.

"Fucking hell," PJ says, under his breath, but he manages to drive the van and turn onto a dirt track that leads onto a field.

The engine gives one final sputter and dies completely, leaving the three of them sitting in silence.

"Well," Phil says. "At least it's not in the middle of a motorway."

"I knew we should've filled up when we had the chance," PJ says, covering his eyes with his hands. "That's, like, rule number one, always get diesel, even if you feel like you don't really need it, 'cause then shit like this happens and-"

"Hey, it's fine," Phil says, reaching out to squeeze his shoulder. "There are definitely farms around here, right? I'm sure tractors run on diesel. We can go and ask."

"We passed a village back there," Dan points out. "Someone there might have some."

PJ doesn't say anything, but he compulsively pulls the sleeves of his shirt down over his hands. The shirt's one of Dan's, because Peej had run out of shirts first - it's weird to see him wearing something so _black_.

"I can go to the village," Phil says, immediately. "You don't have to go, Peej, you guys can just wait here."

"I'm not - I don't have a problem with villages," PJ says, but his voice sounds weird. "That'd be fucking stupid, having some - some aversion to a type of place, it's just - they're small and the van isn't and - and the exit routes would be narrow, and -"

"And it's fine," Phil says, calmly. "Hey. PJ. Nobody's gonna make you go back there."

"I didn't," PJ's a little red in the face, and when he looks from Phil to Dan and back again there's something defiant about his expression. "It's not a village thing."

"It doesn't matter if it is," Dan says, his voice more gentle than it's been in days. "You're right, exits _are_ narrow in places like that. Maybe - maybe me and Phil should go-"

"No, no, you should stay here," Phil says, immediately.

The look on Dan's face makes it plain what he thinks of that idea.

"What, so you're just gonna wander into some random place by yourself?"

"To get diesel, yeah," Phil says. "You should - someone should - Peej -"

He doesn't know how to communicate to Dan without actually saying it that PJ could probably use the support more than him right now. He hasn't slept properly in days, considering he's the only one out of them who can drive the van for long periods of time without mishaps. The whole village thing on top of that is only bound to be making him feel worse.

Unfortunately, PJ seems to understand exactly what he's not saying.

"I don't need anyone to stay here with me," He says, vehemently. "It's a field, I'm pretty sure I'll be fine."

Phil isn't sure, but the last thing he wants to do is make PJ feel like he's incapable.

"As long as you're sure," He says, slowly. "Most of the weapons are here, I've got, like, two knives on me anyway so I'll be ok, there's - the tranquilisers are under the seat-"

"I'll just lock the doors," PJ says, firmly. "And call you guys if anything happens."

"And we'll call you," Dan says. "When we get there. Shouldn't take longer than twenty minutes. If we can't find any we'll come straight back."

"I'll be _fine_ ," PJ repeats.

There's something about the look on his face that makes Phil hug him.

"We won't be long," He promises.

After which it's just him and Dan, walking along the country lane with PJ's diesel can. Phil's horribly aware of how unkempt they both look - or him, at least, with his week's worth of stubble and his messy hair. He'd done the best he could with dry shampoo but it wasn't good enough. He flattens it nervously as they walk and wishes it was cold enough to get away with wearing a hat.

"You look fine," Dan says.

Phil startles, embarrassed.

"What?"

Dan just nods at him.

"You're all, like," He flattens down his own hair in imitation. "You look fine, it's ok."

"I look like I've been sleeping in a van for a week," Phil tells him. "We both do. Would you give diesel to us?"

"It's not like we're not gonna pay for it," Dan points out. "And I'd definitely give you diesel."

Phil doesn't smile until he sees that Dan is. He doesn't know how long it's been since he saw Dan actually smile.

"You'd give me diesel," He says, slowly. "That's, like, the worst pick-up line I've ever heard."

"Shut up!"

"Seriously, _so_ bad," Phil says, laughing a little when Dan does.

It's so good to see Dan actually smile and laugh again that Phil feels like something's been set to rights inside of him, something that had previously been off-kilter that he hadn't even noticed.

Dan notices him looking for a little too long and his smile fades.

"I'm sorry," He says. "I - I've been the fucking worst, I know."

"No, you haven't."

Dan gives him a look.

"I mean, you've been...quiet," Phil corrects. "But nobody could blame you. I just - I was worried."

"I just wish you guys didn't have to be in this situation," Dan says, gesturing ahead of them. The lane is bordered by hedges on either side, and wild flowers are growing on the tufts of grass that line the road.

"I mean, this is pretty nice, compared to everything else," Phil points out. When Dan just looks worried, Phil moves close enough to touch his hand. "It's fine. _We're_ fine, I dunno how many times I have to tell you."

"Maybe when we're not in constant danger," Dan says, darkly. "I can smell vamps. I mean, I can always smell vamps, I just - maybe there's a group nearby, I dunno."

"I hope they're this way and not that way," Phil says. When Dan looks at him, he explains, "I'd rather us run into them together than Peej run into them by himself."

Dan nods.

"We won't be long," He says, and gives Phil's hand a tight squeeze before letting it go. "Come on."

-

They end up veering off the lane after a while and onto a footpath. A battered old sign tells them that they're headed the right way for the village - or the village hall, at least. Phil doesn't feel particularly great about going through a patch of woodland, trees so close knit and tall that the comforting sunlight is green filtered and strange.

"I'd have hated this when I was alive," Dan tells him. When Phil just gives him a questioning look, he adds, "Blair Witch. Fuck that shit."

Phil laughs.

"So that doesn't scare you now?"

"Nah," Dan says, lightly. "I know there are worse things. And it was never like this when I was alive. Like - everything was better, obviously, but - but I guess being able to smell stuff is pretty cool. I dunno. Like, there are pine trees somewhere over there," He gestures off to the right, where there isn't a pine tree in sight. "I can smell flowers, somewhere. And petrol. Maybe not petrol, maybe - maybe lighter fluid. Something like that. And, like, there was a deer here maybe an hour ago? Maybe longer? There's just - there's something in the air, I dunno. Must've been a deer. I've never smelt a deer before."

"Honestly, same," Phil says, just to make Dan smile. "I wish you'd told me you liked countryside stuff earlier. Could've dragged you back home on a visit."

"Oh, right," Dan says. "'Cause you'd take me to a house of hunters. You said yourself your mum'd-"

"We don't know what my mum'd do," Phil says, uncomfortably. "And I didn't mean that, I meant, like, just. Just the town, that's all. It's up in the hills, it's nice. _Tons_ of deer to smell, probably."

"Well, in that case," Dan says, smiling a little. "I dunno. I'd like to see where you were, like, a kid, I guess. Not so much the whole, _your parents literally killing me_ part."

"I wouldn't let them," Phil says, and means it. Dan looks at him for a long moment, expression inscrutable, and then they carry on walking.

They reach a rocky place when the path twists suddenly, and there are the whitewashed fronts of old cottages visible through the trees. A breeze blows through the trees, bringing the smell of freshly cut grass with it on the air, and Dan stops dead, a haunted expression on his face.

"No," He says, taking a step backwards.

"Dan?" Phil says, but Dan ignores him, grabbing hold of him by the shoulder and forcibly leading him back down the footpath. "Dan, what the fuck are you-?"

"We have to get back," Dan says, voice low and urgent, his face ghostly pale and terrified. "It's a farm, Phil, it's a fucking blood farm."

"No," Phil says, feeling like he just missed a step going downstairs. "No, no, fuck, PJ-"

"Just go," Dan says. "Run as fast as you can, you have to-"

A gunshot rings through the trees and he crumples.

"Dan," Phil says, the name torn out of his mouth. The force of the shot made Dan fall to his knees, the diesel can falling to the forest floor with a clatter. He's clutching his shoulder, dark blood oozing between his fingers. Phil drops to his own knees with a painful thud that he barely feels, hands touching Dan's shoulder, his face, his shaking hands. "Dan, Dan, oh God, fuck-"

There's the sound of a gun being cocked behind him and he turns to find the barrels pointed in his direction by some vamp with dried blood around her mouth.

For all of half a second Phil thinks this is it - she's the vampire who turned Dan, the one they've been running from, and it feels like the ground's been snatched out from under his feet.

"You're trespassing," She says.

There's a sick kind of relief then, in knowing that this isn't necessarily the end. Not the one he'd imagined, anyway.

No, he's just going to get shot in some strange village miles and miles from home, and nobody will ever know. He thinks about Martyn and their lacklustre last phone call, he thinks about his parents and how he never actually took them up on their offer of a visit home.

He thinks about the knife up his sleeve and how quickly he could get it out if he had to, whether he could throw and hit her before she could pull the trigger on him.

"We just ran out of diesel," Phil says, hating how small and scared his voice sounds. He's forgotten everything he ever learned about vampires and gunshot wounds. What sort of bullet kills a vampire? Dan's still alive for now, at least - Phil can hear him breathing shallowly in shock - but could a shoulder wound kill him? Do vampires die of blood loss? "We just - we just wanted diesel, I'm-"

"Move," She says, face curled into a snarl. "Get him up. Get _up_ ," She insists, moving the gun from Phil to Dan, who's staring at his own bloody, trembling hands.

Phil feels like he's working on autopilot as he helps Dan to his feet.

"Move," The vamp repeats, jabbing the gun into the small of his back. "Any fucking around and I shoot your boyfriend in the head."

She leads them back along the footpath and stumbling into the deserted village. The cottage fronts are blank, their curtains drawn, windows winking in the afternoon sunlight. The village has a fountain in the middle of it, and a village green that they're forced to walk across, Phil's feet slipping on damp grass.

They end up being forced up the steps of what looks like it could be the village hall. It all looks so normal, Phil feels like he's fallen into some terrible nightmare. He'll wake up any second and be back in the van, sweating next to a peacefully sleeping PJ - or better yet, at home in his bed in the flat, with Dan sleeping next to him, curled up in a ball, with nothing to worry about but their next shift at the library.

The green door of the hall opens.

"What the fuck are they?" Another vamp, this one with a shaved head, demands, giving Dan and Phil unimpressed looks.

"Caught them sneaking around in the woods. Brought them for Cal to have a look at."

"You know what time it is, right?" The shaved vamp says, with a sneer. "He's busy. Just bin the dead one and eat the live one, you know how it goes."

"Who is it, Toby?" A voice asks from inside the hall.

The shaved vamp rolls his eyes.

"Gina thinks she's found some interesting trespassers, Cal," He says. "I'm telling her to fuck off."

"Hey, no," Another vamp appears at the guy's shoulder, pulling the door open wide. His smile is huge and terrifying, teeth long and deadly. "I love visitors. Nice work, Gina. You can feed over at number four."

"Thanks, Cal," Gina says. "I shot this one. Left the breather unharmed in case you were hungry."

"Wonderful," Cal says, eyes bright. "Well, come in, the pair of you. Loitering on the doorstep isn't good for anyone."

The vamp with the shaved head grabs hold of Phil's arm and Dan snarls, moving faster than Phil thought he could to place himself between them.

"You don't touch him," He says, voice sounding like he's been chewing on broken glass.

"Interesting," The vamp says, and reaches out quickly, squeezing Dan's shoulder and pressing his thumb hard into the gunshot wound. Dan makes a pained noise and his legs buckle slightly. "Looks like I touch whatever I want."

They end up being led into what might've once been a place where weekly meetings or jumble sales were held. There are still posters on the walls advertising diet clubs and fundraisers. Four large windows overlook the village green, everything beyond them calm and ordinary. There's a strangely sweet, musty smell in the air that reminds Phil of a hundred church events he attended with school as a kid.

He could die here, he thinks, as he and Dan are led into the middle of the floor. He could die here, right now, and nobody would ever know.

Knife in his pocket, knife in his sock, they haven't checked for knives yet. Phil thinks longingly of his tranquilisers, left under the seat in the van with PJ. He could shake his knife out and take out one of these guys, maybe Dan could get the other. Dan, whose face is pale, forehead glinting with sweat in the light coming in through the windows.

"What is this?" The vamp called Cal asks. He's talking to Dan, not Phil. "Is this you bringing an offering to the farm? Wanting to join? What?"

"We just-"

"Toby, keep the meat quiet," Cal says, pulling a face like he just smelled something terrible.

He expects the kick in the back of the leg so he doesn't cry out as he's knocked to his knees. He doesn't do anything beyond clenching his teeth when Toby snickers, nastily.

Phil stares at the yellowish floorboards beneath him and thinks, _I won't die here. These two fuckers are gonna die here instead._

"I'll kill you," Dan says, his voice low and dangerous, like Phil's never heard him sound before. "You touch him one more time and I swear to God I'll rip your throat out."

"You wouldn't last five minutes afterwards," Cal says, calmly. "Do you know exactly what you've walked into? There are hundreds of us. You kill me and you'd have to kill a hundred more. And for what? A glorified snack? Please."

Dan doesn't say anything.

"Yeah, I didn't think so," Cal says. "Toby, bring the meat here."

Toby moves from his position behind Phil and Phil makes a split second decision - one second he's on his knees and the next he's shaken the knife out of his sleeve and plunged it deep into the vamp's calf. He screams and falls over, by which time Phil's on his feet in time to see Dan punching Cal in the face. Phil's about to shout him to throw him his knife when the window shatters.

Everything's a blur after that.

Phil just sees a flash of light before something shatters on the ground, and then suddenly there's fire everywhere, a burst of heat that nearly knocks him flat. Everything's suddenly in chaos - Phil grabs Dan and pulls him out of the way blindly, choking on fumes. Cal isn't so lucky - he'd been closer to whatever it was that came through the window and it's no time at all before the flames engulf him. His final scream is a terrible one, high pitched and bone-deep, and he falls to the floor, writhing as he burns. There's a smell in the air that might be worse than the smoke - some sharp, acrid smell, the smell of something long dead being burnt.

Phil's making sure Dan's ok when another bottle comes flying through the window and smashes, the large fireplace of the room catching fire, flames licking up to the wooden beams in the ceiling.

"Dan, Dan," Phil says. The side of Dan's face is scorched red and black, his eyes streaming. Phil can't breathe. "We have to - Dan -"

PJ's voice comes to him, a conversation they'd had months ago in the cafe on the first day they'd ever met. He'd told Phil about the blood farm, and Phil had asked how he'd escaped.

_Oh, we set the whole place on fire_...

Dan seems dazed, his eyes glazed over, and Phil pulls him to the door.

"Don't," Toby croaks, from the ground. "You can't leave me here..."

Phil spares him all of a half second's glance before he pulls Dan out of the door and down the hall. The smoke follows them, and when Phil wrenches the door open and they spill out onto the steps, coughing, it's to find a scene utterly different from the tranquil village of moments before. Several of the cottages are on fire, and as Phil watches a man with a shotgun runs along and throws another flaming bottle of alcohol through another window. There's the sound of screams and screeches of pain, the cottages already alight belching black smoke into the air.

Dan's leaning heavily on Phil, like he can't hold himself up. All Phil can think is that if someone sees them they might get mistaken for vamps in the confusion and killed. They have to get out of here.

There's the cracking noise of wood burning behind them, and that's what spurs Phil into action, pulling Dan along across the village green and out into the open. The air's full of the sound of screams and gunshots and glass breaking.

It's the longest few minutes of Phil's life, he's sure. His chest hurts and each breath wheezes, in and out, but he keeps moving, keeps pulling Dan along. If they stop they're as good as dead, he thinks, so they have to keep going.

As they reach one of the final cottages Phil watches someone else with a gun shoot a vamp point blank as she tries to run into the woods. They're so close now, so close to the footpath, if they can just get there unnoticed it'll be fine...

He stumbles, and Dan cries out in pain. The person with the gun turns instantly, pointing it at them.

"Please," Phil begs. "Please, we - we were just passing, we're not part of this, please..."

The girl looks at the two of them, her expression inscrutable.

"Better move fast," She says, and turns, shooting a half-burnt vamp right between the eyes. It hits the ground hard, flames licking at its prone form. "This place is going up."

Phil doesn't need telling twice. He drags Dan back to the footpath, barely believing that they only walked down here twenty minutes ago. His head is throbbing and everything's blurry and weird - he wants to throw up or cry or scream. Dan's still using him to stay upright, and his arm hurts where he's holding Dan up - it occurs to him that he might've burned himself too. Or did he get shot? He doesn't know. All he knows is that they have to get back to PJ, they have to get Dan to a hospital, they have to get out of here...

He glances over his shoulder at the sound of more gunshots and sees nothing but bright flames flickering through the trees.

"Not far now," He mumbles to Dan, his voice hoarse. "Dan? Can you hear me?"

Dan doesn't say anything but Phil can see him blinking, and he's still moving his legs. It's a small comfort.

"It's ok," He says, helpfully, his eyes stinging. "It's gonna be ok, I promise, everything's gonna be fine."

They stumble down the lane, Phil feeling like his legs might give out any second. The smell of smoke is thick in the air. He has no idea what they're gonna do, his brain going haywire with it all. His free hand's shaking too much to even get his phone out of his pocket but they're not far now, they're almost back at the field...

The smell of smoke is still sharp in the air, and it isn't until they stumble into the field that Phil realises why.

The van's on fire.

Phil helps Dan onto the ground and runs mindlessly forwards - PJ, there's no way, they left him there so he'd be safe, he has to be safe-

"Peej," Phil yells, getting close enough that he has to cover his mouth with his sleeve. "PJ!"

He can't see anything in the van, the heat and black smoke from the flames is too much.

"Peej!" He shouts. It takes him a second to notice that his face is wet, and he realises he's crying. "PJ, no, please..."

He backs away and scrabbles at his pocket, getting his phone out, his hands shaking so badly he all but drops it. Through a haze of panic he manages to scroll through and dial PJ's number.

"Peej," He says, his voice small and childlike. "PJ, please..."

It takes him a second to realise that he can hear the phone ringing, over the roaring in his ears and the sound of the flames.

It's PJ's dumb ringtone, the one Phil's heard a thousand times in the flat, always followed by a cheerful voice saying, "Hello, you've reached PJ's phone," every time, like he's a radio show presenter.

The phone rings and rings and rings. Phil spots it, lighting up in the grass a few feet away.

"PJ," He says, numbly, when he picks it up off the ground. "Peej..."

He stares at the phone in his hand, feeling empty. He looks over and Dan's on the ground where he left him. From this angle he looks like he might be dead. He _could_ be dead.

Phil walks back over to him, feeling like a zombie, feeling so much that he could be feeling nothing at all. He drops to his knees by Dan's side.

"Phil," Dan wheezes, as soon as Phil's there. Phil grabs hold of his hand and pushes his hair off his forehead. The side of his face is burnt, red and painful looking.

"I'm right here, I'm sorry," Phil says, holding on tight.

"Peej," Dan says, trying to look around. "I don't - where is he-"

"PJ's gone," He says, trying to keep his voice as steady as possible. It doesn't work, and when he blinks his face is hot with more tears. "He's gone."

Dan's face crumples, and Phil holds him as close as he can without hurting him. He feels like the sky's fallen in around his ears, like he's wandered into a dark place with no exit and the walls are getting closer and closer, about to crush him.

PJ's phone rings.

Phil takes a moment to let Dan go and pick the phone up off the ground.

He shouldn't pick up, what if it's PJ's mum and he has to tell her he doesn't know what happened to her son, what if it's someone important, what if-?

Feeling dazed and disconnected, Phil answers the phone.

"You ruined everything, Dan," A woman's voice says. "I just wanted to have you with me, that was all. It never had to get this far. You just had to make it into a game, didn't you?" A soft laugh. "Too bad I love games. Love 'em so much I started a whole new one."

The phone line crackles.

"Dan," PJ's voice is thick and strange sounding, but undoubtedly him.

"PJ," Phil says, desperate, his heart hammering. "Peej, you're alive, you're-"

"She got me," PJ says. "That van door never - never shut properly, not really..."

"PJ, don't worry, it's gonna be ok," Phil says, his voice strained. "We're gonna get you and everything's gonna be fine, PJ, please, it's gonna be-"

"Aw, that's sweet," The woman says. "Really. Very sweet. So. Game rules. You have forty eight hours to come and get him. And I mean just you, Dan, no police, no URTs, just you. Any weird shit and he's dead." A pause. "I wouldn't use the full two days if I were you, by the way. Just a little tip, from me to you." There's the sound in the background of PJ crying out in pain, and bile rises in Phil's throat, anger and fear making his eyes prickle again. "He's fun to hurt. Seems used to it, you know?"

"I'm gonna kill you," Phil says, voice small and angry, the only thing he can think to say beyond blind panic.

The woman laughs.

"Cute," She says. "Forty eight hours. Come and get him."


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took so long to write, and I found it so goddamn challenging, holy fuck. It's super heavy. I'm sorry it's taken so long - I'm still not 100% about it but honestly at this point it seems fine enough to release into the wild so I'm just gonna fucking do it
> 
> Not far til the end now. Thank you all so much for reading for this long, for leaving kudos and commenting, for putting up with my bullshit and my inconsistent updates. I think each and every single one of you is fucking awesome and I don't deserve any of you <3 <3
> 
> There are probably 1200000 mistakes, you know the drill. I'll fix them in the morning

Phil hasn't slept.

 

He tried. He tried on the way here, with Dan's head cradled on his lap, the pair of them folded awkwardly together on the back seat of a too-small car. He'd stroked Dan's hair off his damp forehead and watched the erratic flicker of his eyelashes, the only movement that let Phil know that he was still alive.

 

Phil had closed his eyes and leant his head against the rain-washed window, experiencing the day in flashes. Their ordinary morning, driving around the countryside. PJ laughing, his smile bright. Looking into the back of the van at Dan and catching him looking back, eyes moving across Phil's profile like a gentle touch, darting away as soon as he realised he'd been caught.

 

Breaking down in the field. The look on PJ's face when he'd insisted that he'd be alright by himself in the van, and whatever it was about it that'd made him pull him into a hug.

 

The crack of a gunshot through the trees and Dan crumpling to the ground. The darkness of the blood on his hands, on Phil's hands. The smell of smoke and screams in the village.

 

The van in flames. The phone call.

 

Phil thinks about PJ. He thinks about his smile and his plants, his fairy lights and his guitar, and he feels like he might scream, like it's clawing its way up his throat and eventually he'll have to let it out.

 

 _I'll be fine_ , PJ had said. The words run around in Phil's head. _I'll be fine, I'll be fine_.

 

Why had they left him there? Why hadn't Phil insisted that Dan stay behind with him? If he'd walked into the village alone then - then PJ wouldn't have been by himself against the vamp who took him, and -

 

And she would've enthralled Dan. She'd have enthralled him and he would've killed PJ, and Phil would've returned from the village to nothing at all. Perhaps PJ's body, abandoned and broken in the grass.

 

It was like a projector flickering into life every time he closed his eyes, images playing behind his eyelids that got progressively worse and worse the more time passed. PJ could be dead. Dan might still die. Forty eight hours to get to PJ, and then what?

 

 _Just you, Dan. No police, no URTs, just you_.

 

Phil feels like he can hear her voice echoing in his ears when he looks down at Dan. Dan, whose skin looks greyish against bright white hospital sheets, his skin all but unmarked and smooth. It's been ten hours since they brought him here (and the journey took an hour, and that was about an hour after the phone call, which means they have thirty six hours to get to PJ now).

 

They'd pumped Dan full of blood on arrival to help him heal quicker, or something.

 

Phil had been powerless to stop them. He thought about Dan when he'd been recovering from visiting the donor, his red eyes and sickly complexion, and thought he'd rather have that Dan back in a second than the one slumped on a stretcher, burned and unresponsive. The vampire doctors had spoken to him, tried to explain what needed to be done, but Phil doesn't really remember much of what they'd said, the words squirming into his ears and wriggling around like nonsensical worms.

 

He'd agreed to anything. Everything they wanted. Anything that'd help Dan. If they said they'd run out of blood to give and needed a donor immediately he'd have handed over his wrist without a second thought.

 

The blood had worked, no matter the cost later on. Dan's face is all but healed, the ugly black and red of his burned cheek fading to the pinkish hue of new skin in a matter of hours. Phil couldn't catch it happening, even though he hasn't moved from his bedside. The nurses have assured him that the gunshot wound is healing just fine, too.

 

"Won't even need a dressing tomorrow," One of them had reassured him, flashing a smile that he couldn't find it in him to return.

 

Dan's fine. He's safe. He's sleeping. Phil had asked about that - about why Dan was still unconscious, and a doctor had told him that as a safety measure they had to use a low level tranquiliser while they removed the bullet. She'd said something about how normal anaesthetics weren't enough for vamps, but Phil's brain had checked out as soon as he'd established that Dan wasn't in immediate danger.

 

He holds Dan's hand, sitting by his bedside. His own palm's sweaty but Dan's is cool, his unconscious fingers limp in Phil's. Phil strokes his thumb over the freckle on the back of Dan's hand and thinks about PJ.

 

It's like there's something heavy sitting on his shoulders, pressing down so hard he's bound to buckle under the weight of it before long.

 

It's the knowledge that PJ's life is in his hands, and there's nothing he can do.

 

He just sits there while time ticks away all around him. It feels horribly like he's choosing Dan by sitting here, impotently squeezing his limp fingers in his own.

 

She'd called again. Phil had thought she might - the weight of the phone in his pocket as heavy as lead. It'd been when Dan had been in surgery to remove the bullet, and Phil had been left pacing in the waiting room.

 

He'd wanted to kick the chairs over, to throw the old magazines sitting on the tables until torn pages fluttered around the room like butterflies. He wanted to yell in the faces of the people sitting around calmly, waiting. It felt wrong that they could sit there like that, so unfeeling, like Phil was feeling so much that even strangers should be able to look at him and see it and know.

 

When PJ's phone had started ringing in his pocket, Martyn had told him to ignore it.

 

Martyn, Phil thinks, is a better brother than he actually deserves. Martyn had driven to pick them up when Phil had realised the burning village wasn't as far from home as he'd thought, and he'd driven the pair of them to the nearest vampire hospital without asking too many questions.

 

Phil knows that's something else he's going to have to deal with sooner or later - the explanation for all of this. It seems insignificant in comparison with everything else - a raindrop in an ocean already rippling from an earthquake.

 

"Ignore it," Martyn had said. Phil had felt cold, like his skin was full of icy prickles, even though he could feel his palms sweating and his heart racing, just from the phone buzzing in his hand. "Phil, it's fine, it's not-"

 

Phil had picked up, barely listening.

 

"Tick tock," She'd said, in a voice full of laughter. "You're disappointing me. Don't you want to save your boyfriend?"

 

"Where are you?"

 

"Ah, now," She'd said. "That's why I called. I did toy with the idea of leaving you to figure it out for yourself, but that didn't seem like much fun at all. I mean, killing him's gonna be fun, but you'd never find me."

 

Phil had walked away from Martyn on autopilot, his protests falling on deaf ears.

 

"I'm going to kill you," He'd said, voice low and somehow steady. "I swear to God, you won't last five minutes once I get there."

 

He'd been breathing heavily, and there was silence down the line for what felt like the longest moment. Phil's skin had crawled with dread, as hot and heavy as scrabbling hands on his skin. He'd wondered if he'd gone too far - if he'd put PJ's life in even more danger, if PJ was dead already.

 

"You're not Dan."

 

"No shit," Phil had snarled. "What, you thought he only had one friend? Sorry to disappoint."

 

"Who's disappointed?" She'd said. The smile in her voice made him clench his fist hard by his side, digging his fingernails into his palm. "White Bar Industrial Estate. You tell him. The pair of you come alone or I'll snap his neck."

 

She'd hung up.

 

Phil's hand shook so badly when he pulled the phone away from his ear that he'd nearly dropped it, his vision blurry. Martyn was in front of him, holding his wrists and saying something, but whatever it was sounded like he was shouting it down a long tunnel, and Phil was much too far away to hear him.

 

She hadn't let him speak to PJ. That could mean anything. PJ could be dead. Phil left him to die. If he'd just made Dan stay, if he'd just gone to the village alone, if he'd just-

 

"Phil," Martyn had said. "Phil, breathe, ok? You need to calm down, everything's fine. Everything's gonna be ok."

 

He'd let Martyn hug him until he could breathe properly again. That'd been a few hours ago now, and time's still ticking.

 

Phil just holds Dan's hand, looking at his peaceful face, and feels a lump rising in his throat. He's never felt so small and helpless in his life. PJ could be dead, and when Dan comes round Phil's gonna have to tell him about her and where she's holding PJ, and there's no way out of any of this that doesn't involve either the two of them wandering to their deaths or PJ ending up dead himself, if he isn't already.

 

"Hey," Martyn says, quietly. "I got coffee."

 

"You should go home," Phil says. His voice sounds rusty from lack of use. "I'm really sorry about all of this, I just. You can go, it's fine."

 

Martyn ignores him.

 

"They have a Costa in here, if you can believe that," He says, setting a takeaway cup down on the locker by Dan's bed and moving over to the chair by Dan's feet. "Is it 'cause they're vamps, d'you think? Or are all hospitals actually selling good coffee now?"

 

Phil shrugs. Martyn looks tired but his eyes are somehow bright. He looks the way he used to when they were younger and he wanted to make Phil smile. He looks like their _mum_ , so much so that it spikes hard in Phil's chest, the desire to be young enough that he could call her and have her fix all of his problems.

 

Martyn smiles at him. It doesn't reach his eyes. Phil can't even make his mouth move. He ends up looking back at Dan just because it feels unlucky to look away, like if he lets him out of his sight for a second he'll end up like PJ - somewhere else, being tortured by vampires. Dead in some industrial estate far from home.

 

"Phil," Martyn says, quietly.

 

"It's," Phil shakes his head. "I'm sorry. I. I didn't know who else to call, and I-"

 

"I need to know what's going on. That's it. And whatever it is, I'm pretty sure I can help with it."

 

Phil just shakes his head again, feeling like his throat's closing up. The last thing he needs is someone else he cares about getting involved in this mess.

 

"It's nothing."

 

"Ok," Martyn says. "So you call me out of the blue, hysterical, asking if I can come and get you and your friend from some village-"

 

"Martyn-"

 

"A village that I find out pretty quickly is a blood farm, and your friend's a vamp who's been _shot_ -"

 

"It's not-"

 

"And then when we get him to a hospital you get a phone call that makes you completely shut down," Martyn says. "But it's nothing. Right."

 

"Martyn," Phil says. His mouth's dry. The smell of the coffee from the cup on the table drifts over to his nose and it's so painfully normal, so ordinary, when the rest of the world has been tipped upside down. "We - we were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. That's it, I swear."

 

Phil watches the way Martyn's jaw tightens because he's clenching his teeth.

 

"The wrong place at the wrong time at a blood farm?"

 

"I," Phil closes his eyes for a second. "We were on a trip. Like I said. And - and we broke down near a village that - that turned out to be a blood farm. D'you think I'd go near one of those on purpose?"

 

"What about PJ?" Martyn asks, ignoring the question. "You said you were travelling with him, where is he?"

 

Phil feels horribly cold for a second.

 

"He just," _He's dead, I left him to die and there's nothing I can do about it._ "He wanted to go back home, that's all, he. He went to visit his family."

 

"Right," Martyn says, evidently not believing a word. "And the phone call? That was just a regular chat with a friend, was it?"

 

Phil swallows.

"Bad breakup," He says.

 

Martyn scoffs.

 

"Yeah, that seems likely," He says, gesturing at where Phil's still holding Dan's hand. He shakes his head in disbelief, pacing up and down a little at the foot of Dan's bed.

 

"I just want to know what it can be that's so bad that you can't tell me," He says after a moment, voice low. "Whatever it is, I can help. You know I can help."

Phil looks at him and remembers when he nearly died at the hands of that vamp. He thinks about how helpless he'd felt when they'd taken Dan into surgery, taken him somewhere Phil couldn't follow. He thinks about PJ, his smile behind Phil's eyelids bright as a camera flash, and feels the panic rising in his chest, making his lungs feel constrained and tight. His eyes sting and his throat hurts and he can't cry, not now. Not in front of Martyn.

 

"It's nothing," He says, his voice worryingly ordinary sounding. "I'd tell you if there was anything you could help with. I promise."

 

Martyn looks at him for a long moment.

 

"I'm not going anywhere," He says, flatly. "I already called Cornelia but I promised I'd check in. I'll tell her I'm sticking around."

 

"Ok.”

 

"One thing," Martyn says, standing up so he towers over Phil, same as when they were kids. "You've always been a fucking terrible liar."

 

-

 

Phil doesn't know how long it is after Martyn leaves to make the call that Dan finally stirs. His hand clenches in Phil's and he mumbles, eyelids fluttering. When he finally blinks his eyes open Phil expects them to be reddened and ugly because of the blood but they're normal. It's comforting, somehow.

 

“Dan,” Phil says, stupidly, squeezing his hand tightly. “Dan, are you ok?”

 

Dan looks at him, bleary-eyed, and licks his lips a couple of times, frowning.

 

“Did I feed?”

 

“No,” Phil says, so relieved that he seems ok that it blots everything else out for a moment. “No, you – you're in hospital, they gave you blood to help you heal.”

 

“Fuck,” Dan says, tugging his hand free of Phil's to rub his eyes. “What about – Jesus, fuck, what about PJ?”

 

Phil swallows.

 

“She got him,” He says, not knowing how else to tell him. “She – she called, she – Dan, no-”

 

Dan's already throwing the blankets back and trying to get out of bed.

 

“We have to get him back,” He says. “What did she say?”

 

Phil watches helplessly as he gets up, already pacing back and forth as though he was never in a hospital bed in the first place.

 

“That we need to go,” He says, mouth dry. “Both of us To this - this industrial estate. If not she'll – she'll kill him. And we don't have long. When she first called she said it was forty eight hours.”

 

“And how much time have we wasted because I'm a fucking idiot?” Dan says, gripping his own hair in frustration. “We have to go. We can't stay here, I'm - I'm fine."

 

He's speaking fast, practically vibrating with energy. Even so, part of Phil wants to protest - he knows that Dan isn't really in any fit state to be going anywhere, but they've wasted too much time already not finding PJ. Maybe too much time, but thinking about that makes Phil feel like he might scream.

 

"We don't have the van," Phil says. "What do we do, we don't..." He looks around helplessly, as though a car might drive through the wall and they can get in it and leave. "Fuck."

 

His gaze falls on Martyn's abandoned chair, his jacket hanging from the back of it. Martyn, who left to call Cornelia, which has to take about fifteen minutes...

 

"Your stuff's in that locker, get it," Phil says, moving over to Martyn's chair before he can change his mind, rummaging in Martyn's jacket pockets. It's such a remote chance, but as soon as he tries the inside pocket he feels the coldness of metal against his fingers, pulling the car keys out. "We don't have a lot of time."

 

It takes them ten minutes to get to the car park. Ten minutes in which Phil's heart is hammering so hard in his chest he feels like it must be audible to everyone, vampire or not. Dan's holding Phil's hand so tightly he feels like his bones are grinding beneath his skin but he doesn't let go. They just keep walking, trying to strike a balance between an ordinary speed to outside observers and fast enough to get outside before Martyn realises that they're gone.

 

Once they're safely outside, finding the car is another minefield. Phil spots it at the end of a row and takes off at a run, holding on tight to Dan's hand. He fumbles with the keys, hitting the button and throwing himself into the driver's seat.

 

"That's a fucking terrible idea," Dan says, struggling with his seatbelt. "You, driving."

 

"Doesn't matter," Phil says, and starts the engine.

 

They've barely left the car park when Phil's phone buzzes in his pocket. He ignores it.

 

"What the fuck are we doing," He says, his voice strained. "What the fuck, Dan, what the fuck-"

 

"We didn't have a choice," Dan says. He looks whey-faced, leaning back in the passenger seat. "We have to get Peej, we can't leave him."

 

"Martyn's gonna lose his fucking shit," Phil says, even though he knows that's the least of his worries right now. He feels like he's fallen into hysteria, the truth of the situation hitting him with all the softness of a hammer blow to the head. "He's - he wanted to know what was going on and I didn't tell him, I - I couldn't, and - what if he's dead?" He looks across at Dan. "What if I waited too long, and - and she's killed him, what if we left him to die?"

 

Dan reaches over and grips hold of Phil's arm, tightly.

 

"He's not," He says, his voice cracking a little. "He's not dead. I promise he's not dead."

 

"You can't know that, you can't-”

 

"He's not," Dan says, and when Phil looks over at him he looks determined. "We're gonna get him out of there, I swear."

 

Phil doesn't know whether to believe him or not. He can't. He doesn't think he'll believe anything until he can see PJ alive and well with his own two eyes.

 

They're quiet for a little while.

 

Phil doesn't think he's ever driven so well in his entire life. It feels like he's acting on autopilot, his hands and feet moving of their own accord. Inside is where he's freaking out, where his throat feels thick and his brain is a mess of worry, his stomach curled into a thousand knots. His hands keep slipping with sweat on the steering wheel and every time he thinks about PJ - about him in danger, injured or worse - his heart lurches painfully in his chest and he feels like the whole world should be tilting, like the cars on the road ahead should be skittering off to one side as the road rolls like a ship in a storm.

 

Every time it happens Dan reaches over and touches his arm, startling him. He's grey-faced and sickly looking, and Phil makes a mental note in amongst all the chaos to stop somewhere to stock up on blood substitutes before they get to the industrial estate.

 

Stopping off at a service station, like they're going on a cute road trip. Like they're headed to the beach on a date, and not going on a potentially fruitless trip to get PJ back - PJ, who could be dead, who could've been dead all along, ever since they left...

 

If PJ's alive, Phil doesn't know what they'll do. He hasn't thought that far ahead beyond blind rage directed towards the vamp that did this - the vamp who killed Dan in the first place.

 

Phil imagines bones breaking under his hands, imagines his hands steady and sure on his knife. Then he thinks about PJ, small and broken on the ground, and his resolve flickers like a candle in the rain.

 

“What do we do?” He asks. His phone's still buzzing in his pocket. “I mean – what – I only have knives, that's all I've got, and you-”

 

“I've seen you fight with knives,” Dan says. “You'll be fine. Remember what I said, my right arm's a weakness, and – and if you wanna finish it quick just trip me and then – the right arm, remember-”

 

“What,” Phil says, stupidly, coming to an abrupt halt at some traffic lights. He looks over at Dan and Dan looks back, pale, resignation in his eyes. “What the fuck are you saying?”

 

He knows exactly what Dan means, but he can't believe he's trying to have this conversation now, of all times, when PJ could be – when he could be -

 

“We arrive, she enthrals me,” Dan says, tone of voice sounding like he's reciting a shopping list, or something learned by heart. “This is how it works, Phil, she – she took Peej for a reason, she – she never got to do the parents thing, and this is her next best bet.”

 

“That's,” Phil blinks, mouth dry, eyes stinging. “That's how you – that's why you think he's alive.”

 

Dan nods.

 

“She'll want me to do it,” He says. “And I will. The second she enthrals me I'll want to kill the pair of you, and that's when you have to-”

 

“No,” Phil says, feeling like there's a roaring sound in his ears, like there's a sheer drop a few steps in front of him and he's moments away from toppling over it into nothingness. “No, I'll go by myself, and-”

 

"And she'll kill PJ the second she realises I'm not there," Dan says. "No, we both have to go. You and me. We go, and - and she enthrals me. And she'll make me attack you, and you'll have to - to finish it."

 

"No," Phil says, the words not properly sinking in. "No, no, we'll - she enthrals you and then - then I can get you and Peej out of there, and -"

 

Dan's already shaking his head.

 

“The second she enthrals me I'm finished, alright? I – I won't even be _me_ anymore, every part of me that remembers being Dan, that'll be gone. I won't remember you and I won't remember Peej, I -”

 

“So I'm just meant to kill you, that's it,” Phil says, his voice shaky and hysterical.

 

A car horn blares behind them. Phil doesn't look away from Dan.

 

“I can't live like that,” Dan says, simply. “I – I won't, I. You have to do it.”

 

“But I'm meant to live with killing you,” Phil says, his voice sounding so small and useless.

 

All of a sudden it's too much to even look at Dan, to even be in the car with him. Phil wants to be a thousand miles away, he wants to throw up, he wants to fucking _cry_.

 

He turns away, staring hard at the driver's side window, nothing but deafening silence coming from Dan's side of the car. That answers his question – yeah, he's meant to live with it. Dan expects Phil to kill him and that he'll be fine, that he'll be able to carry on with his life after that, after looking Dan in the eye and drawing his knife and -

 

And -

 

"No,” He says, blinking hard. “No. Fuck off. There's - there's another way, there's - we call a URT, and - and-" Through the windscreen the traffic lights are green, cars overtaking them. It's all meaningless when Dan's sitting here and telling him that he has to kill him. He runs his hands through his hair, gripping tight, the pain doing nothing to ground him to this conversation. "There has to be another way, there has to."

 

"There isn't," Dan says. When Phil turns to look at him, he looks so resigned, his eyes horribly bright. "This is it. This is - I'm so sorry."

 

"I'm not," Phil can feel the lump rising in his throat. "This - I can't, I can't-"

 

"I won't be me anymore," Dan says. His voice trembles and he shakes his head, avoiding Phil's eye for a moment. "This is all I have left. This. And - and she's gonna take it, and - and the second I'm not me anymore I want you to do it. You have to do it."

 

Phil closes his eyes for a second and tears spill hot down his face. He dashes them away angrily, putting his hands back on the wheel.

 

“This isn't happening,” He says. “This – we're not talking about this. I'm not talking to you like you're – like – no. No. Fuck off.”

 

His phone's still buzzing, overtaking cars blaring their horns, so he flicks the hazard lights on and digs it out of his pocket, blindly hitting the answer call button, his vision blurry. He's dimly aware of Dan sniffling and wiping his own eyes with his sleeve.

 

“Tell me one reason why I shouldn't call the police right now,” Martyn says, his voice tight with anger. “One fucking reason, Phil, I swear to God-”

 

“I had to,” He says, and his voice is shaky and indistinct with unshed tears. “I'm sorry, Martyn.”

 

“Jesus, Phil,” Martyn says. When he speaks again, his voice is gentle. That's enough to make more tears fall when he blinks, just the sound of someone he loves being kind to him. “I just want to help. Let me help. Whatever you've got mixed up in with that Dan guy, I just want-”

 

“It's ok,” He says, sniffing and wiping his eyes. “It's ok, I'm – everything's gonna be fine, can you just...? Can you, um.” _Can you call mum and dad for me, tell them I love them and I'm sorry._ He can't even make himself say the words, just the thought makes his throat feel tight. “I'll try and get the car back to you, I'm. I just have to do something, is that ok?”

 

“Phil, what the-”

 

“I'm really sorry,” Phil says, voice breaking again. “I love you, alright?”

 

He hangs up, handing Dan the phone with a shaking hand.

 

“White Bar Industrial Estate,” He says, avoiding Dan's eye as he flicks the hazards off. “We're gonna need directions.”

 

-

 

They drive for an hour, not talking beyond Dan giving quiet directions from Phil's phone. The route takes them back up into the hills. Phil stares at the road ahead and tries to think of nothing at all. It doesn't work. Time passes and the knot in his stomach tightens, hard as a stone.

 

All he wants is to wake up. He wants to turn over and wake up and have this whole thing be fake, some awful dream he can brush away with the sleep in his eyes.

 

“Just keep going along here,” Dan says, eventually.

 

The road is winding and long, surrounded by rolling moorland on either side, so endless that it's almost like driving on a little strip through an ocean.

 

“How long is it saying we've got?”

 

“About fifteen minutes,” Dan says. He pauses. Phil can feel him looking at him but he doesn't take his eyes off the deserted road ahead. “We can't just not talk about this. We're almost there.”

 

“And I'm not killing you,” Phil says, risking one look in Dan's direction before his eyes dart back to the road. “That's it, conversation over.”

 

Dan exhales sharply through his nose.

 

“So that's it, then,” He says. “You get to decide this for me. That's it.”

 

“It's either that or you get to decide for me,” Phil says, angrily. “Asking me to kill you isn't like asking me to – to pick up some bread from the shop or pass you the remote-”

 

“I didn't say it was,” Dan says. “I'm saying that she's gonna enthral me when we get there, and I'm going to attack you. So what're you gonna do, just stand there and let it happen?”

 

“There are other ways to get past vamps.”

 

“Right,” Dan says. “Except all of your tranquilisers went out in the van fire. I'm not gonna stop and I won't get tired, I'm just gonna want to kill you. That's _it_ , Phil. This isn't something you can decide, this is literally you chosing whether you're gonna kill me or I'm gonna kill you.”

 

Phil shakes his head, clenching his teeth so tightly it hurts. His heart's thudding in his chest and his palms are damp and he feels trapped in this car, trapped in this moment. There's this moment when a tide of ill feeling seems to rise in him like bile in his throat. Dan's saying his name but he doesn't reply, he just clenches his trembling hands on the wheel and focuses long enough to pull up at the roadside, killing the engine.

 

A lone car passes them by with a whoosh.

 

“I can't,” Phil says, scrambling to take his seatbelt off. “I can't do this, I can't-”

 

He throws the door open and gets out. He has no idea what he's doing or where he intends to go – he feels like he's moving underwater, pacing up and down the scrubby grassland that fringes on the roadside, breathing in the cool smell of recently damp grass.

 

The passenger side door shuts and Dan stands there, cautiously watching him.

 

“If we'd just – if we'd just got diesel,” He says, sounding pathetic to his own ears. “If we'd just – none of this would be happening, none of it.”

 

“She would've caught up with me eventually,” Dan says, wearily. “She always would've.”

 

They're silent for a long moment. Another car drives past.

 

“So this is what you meant,” Phil says, eventually, the words heavy with bitterness. “When you said we'd have each other's backs, you meant I was gonna have to kill you.”

 

“I never meant it like that,” Dan says. “Don't – don't – I meant it, I meant you'd look out for me and I'd look out for you, I never thought-”

 

“No, no, but you did,” Phil says. “You tried to teach me how to fight you, you – you told me that shit about your arm, you-” When Dan moves and reaches out to touch him, he shrugs him off. " _No_ , no, don't.” It's quiet for a second, the kind of silence you only get in the countryside, the deafening kind that presses on your ears. “I'm not gonna do it. Find someone else. I'm not fucking doing it. That's - that is _not_ the only way out of this."

 

"It is," Dan says. When Phil scoffs, anger flashes across his face. "What, you think I want this? You think this is what I've wanted all along? Yeah, alright, sounds fucking plausible, I really want to fucking die that badly. Is that what you think?”

 

"I don't know what you want," Phil says, wildly, all but shouting. "I don't - I don't understand and I - I don't-"

 

“I don't want to die,” Dan says. He inhales, making a visible effort to control his temper. When he speaks again his voice is calmer, quieter. “Maybe I did once. God knows I - I sometimes thought maybe it'd have been easier if she'd just left me to bleed out. A lot of times I even wished she had. But I don't - I haven't in a long while, I - I don't want to die."

 

His voice breaks and his face crumples, and Phil moves over to him before he can even think, pulling him close and holding on tight.

 

"I don't want to," Dan's saying. "I - I knew it'd come to this, I knew I couldn't - I knew I shouldn't-"

 

"It's ok," Phil says. When he blinks, his cheeks are warm with tears. Dan smells the same as always, maybe a little chemical from the hospital, and Phil – God, Phil loves him so much that it hurts. "It's ok, Dan, it's ok."

 

"You have to believe me," Dan says. He's holding onto Phil so tightly that it hurts, and Phil doesn't care. "I - this isn't some fucked up deathwish shit, if - if I could think of another way I'd do it, we could - but she has _PJ_ , and -"

 

"I know," Phil says, his voice barely a breath.

 

"I can't - there's no other way out of this, there's no other way, I - I'm so sorry." He pulls back a little, shaking hands wiping the tears off Phil's face. Phil leans into his hands, feeling stupid, feeling like he's being torn apart.

 

He looks at Dan - at his glistening eyes, his nose, his mouth, everything about his face, everything about him. His eyelashes and his hair and how he makes Phil feel, like before he knew him there was an empty space in his ribcage that he didn't even know was there.

 

"I," He can't get the words out, he feels like they're choking him. It feels like it's not enough, like it'd never be enough, but if he was ever going to say it, it had to be now. "I lo-"

 

"No," Dan says, fiercely. "No, shut the fuck up, no." He kisses Phil then, once, a light touch of lips, barely anything. Dan's lips are cold. Phil feels distant, like it happened to someone else. "No."

 

When he leans in again Phil meets him halfway, desperately. His hand's in Dan's hair before he realises what he's doing, Dan clutching at his sides hard enough to hurt. They kiss until Dan's mouth is warm and Phil's struggling for breath. When he pulls away a little his face is wet and he doesn't know if it's because he's crying or because Dan is.

 

“Sorry,” Dan says, hoarse voice barely a whisper. “I'm not – I never wanted this to happen, you know that, right? I mean – not this, I – I thought about this a lot -”

 

“Me too,” Phil says, the word barely a breath as he leans in to kiss Dan once more, just once, just-

 

“I mean,” Dan says, a few moments later, eyes bright with tears. Phil thinks he's crying too, each breath a painful gasp. “I didn't want you to have to do this, I didn't – I never wanted this, I just – I only ever wanted _you_ , and I let it – I let it get in the way of everything else and – and I'm sorry -”

 

“I'm sorry,” Phil says. “I'm – I shouldn't have said that, I know – I -” He loosens his grip in Dan's hair and strokes his face, his neck, anywhere he can reach. “I'd never take anything back, not – not if it means knowing you, I shouldn't have said that, I – I'm sorry-”

 

“I wouldn't ask if I had a choice,” Dan says shakily, more tears rolling down his cheeks when he blinks. “You have to believe me, I don't – I d-don't want this, I – I wish she'd never found me, I wish – God, I wish – I wish we could just go back, and – and have that life, the – the nights in the library, and – and I wish we could – we could go on stupid dates, and – and I _wish_ -”

 

“I want that too,” Phil says, and his voice sounds broken, messed up and ugly.

 

“I know,” Dan says. “I wasted all that time, I'm so _stupid-_ ”

 

His face crumples and Phil just pulls him close and holds tight while he sobs into his shoulder, the pair of them shaking by the side of the road.

 

Phil doesn't know how long they stand there by the roadside. Only a few cars pass, and the wind ripples the grass of the rolling hills all around them. Phil holds Dan close until he stops crying, until they both stop, and then he doesn't want to let go.

 

If he lets go then he has to accept this. He has to go along with this, he has to do it. He has to accept that Dan's going to die, and he has to be the one to kill him.

 

It's only the deafening sound of a clock ticking in the back of his mind, counting down the time PJ has left, that forces him to pull back.

 

“We should go,” Dan says, quietly, avoiding his eye for a moment, as though he read Phil's mind. “We have to get Peej.”

 

Phil nods. He doesn't really trust himself not to cry, not yet. He feels exhausted all of a sudden, looking at how swollen and red Dan's eyes are from crying. His own eyes are stinging. Everything hurts and nothing seems to matter, not when Dan's standing here, resigned, ready for Phil to kill him.

 

Phil thinks of all the enthralled vamps he's ever come across. Their blank eyes, their blood-curdling snarls. He thinks about Martyn and the vamp who nearly killed him, or the vamp he and Dan had encountered in the street, back when he'd thought Dan was alive.

 

He'd taken her to that response centre and they'd knocked her out with a tranquiliser and strapped her to a gurney. They'd wheeled her away to God knows where, to do whatever weird experiments they did with enthralled vamps. She would've woken up eventually, with no idea who she was and what was happening to her, with no memory of ever being alive, only the instincts to attack and feed left.

 

Dan had acted strange about the whole thing, and at the time Phil hadn't understood why. Now he knows. Dan must've watched what happened to her and thought the same could happen to him.

 

 _The second she enthrals me I'm finished, alright? I – I won't even be me anymore, every part of me that remembers being Dan, that'll be gone_...

 

Phil thinks of the unconscious vamp being strapped to the gurney, but instead of the woman in the stained blue dress he thinks of Dan.

 

Dan slumped unconscious and tied down, a life of tests and confusion and burning thirst ahead of him, with no idea of who he'd been before, no memory of anyone who'd loved him.

 

“I'll do it,” Phil hears himself say, with determination that he doesn't feel. Dan stares at him. “I'll – if she enthrals you, I'll do it. I won't – I won't let you be like that.”

 

Dan blinks. His eyelashes are clumped together from crying so much.

 

“Phil,” He says, quietly.

 

“I've got you,” Phil says, even though it hurts him to say it. “We've got each other's backs, like I said.”

 

 _If she enthrals you_ , he thinks, as they make their way back to the car. Only if.

 

Phil doesn't intend on letting it get that far, not if he can help it.

 

 


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a short chapter, but one that I first came up with in 2016. Pretty much everything about this chapter appears in the early notes I made when I first decided I wanted to write a vampire au, so it feels really weird that it's done and posted now, two years later. Blimey
> 
> I'm woefully dissatisfied with this, but I hope someone gets some enjoyment (maybe the wrong word) out of it anyway! I checked for mistakes but apologies if some are still there
> 
> The biggest thanks to all of you for sticking it out with me for this long. Every kudos and comment is the reason I'm so close to finishing this at last <3 <3

White Bar Industrial Estate is little more than a collection of disused warehouses that might once have been barns, or part of a farm. Phil stops the engine and he and Dan sit and look out at rusted corrugated iron and grass growing around the edges of the buildings, ordinary looking but somehow menacing in the wake of what's to come.

 

When Phil takes his seatbelt off, Dan takes hold of his hand. He squeezes tight, but doesn't look Phil in the eye, his gaze trained on the windscreen.

 

“None of this is your fault,” He says, softly. “None of this. Whatever happens in there.”

 

“It's not yours either.”

 

Dan looks at him then.

 

“That's not what I meant," He says. He swallows. "Promise me. Whatever happens, you won't blame yourself."

 

Phil doesn't know what to say. He doesn't want to promise anything when Dan might not even get enthralled. He's still clinging to that hope, small and uncertain, that the three of them might just be able to get out of here unharmed.

 

 

“We get in there,” He says, firmly, as though if he says it out loud he can will it into happening. “We get in there and we get PJ, and we get out as fast as we can. Ok?”

 

“It's not gonna happen like that.”

 

“We get in,” Phil repeats, ignoring him. “And we get Peej, and we get out.”

 

They look at each other for a long moment. Dan looks anguished.

 

“Ok,” He says, the word barely a breath.

 

“Ok,” Phil agrees. After a moment's hesitation, he brings their joined hands up to his mouth and kisses the back of Dan's hand. It's awkward and stupid, but the look on Dan's face afterwards makes him feel like he might cry again.

 

“Let's go,” Phil says, with determination that he doesn't feel.

 

-

 

They try each building, Dan trying to smell out any hint of PJ or the vampire they're hunting.

 

“This feels like a trap,” He says, after the second warehouse turns up nothing. “I mean, it is a trap, obviously. I mean, it feels like they're not here.”

 

As soon as Phil levers open the third warehouse door, though, Dan's expression changes.

 

“He's here,” He says. “Peej is here.”

 

Phil strides into the building without a second thought. There are things that look like old vehicles covered in dusty tarpaulins and the smell of motor oil in the air. It's quiet - the whole place is quiet, but the quiet in this building is oppressive, somehow. It reminds Phil of the library at three in the morning, the sort of heavy silence that means something's going on that can't be heard.

 

Phil walks around the covered vehicles, heart beating fast. PJ has to be alive, surely, he has to be if Dan can smell him, he _has_ to be -

 

They round another bulky silhouette under tarp and make it into the main area of the warehouse. It's a giant clear space, lit by yellowing bulbs hanging overhead.

 

There's a figure sprawled on the floor in the middle of the room. As soon as Phil realises what he's seeing he takes off at a run to get to him, to touch his face and make sure he's alive.

 

“Peej,” He says. PJ's face is cold but he moves when Phil touches him, making a pitiful noise under his breath. All Phil can smell is the rusty scent of dried blood, smears of it on PJ's temple and his cheek. “PJ, we came for you, we got you, it's ok.”

 

“Broke my leg,” PJ says, quietly. “Dunno if I can move. She's – she knew you were coming, she's still here.”

 

“I know,” Phil says. “Come on, you have to get up.” He looks up at Dan, who's standing over them, posture rigid, face bone-pale. He remembers all of a sudden, sharp as a camera flash, that night when Violet had been taken away from the library – he'd thought Dan looked strange then, that there had been something inhuman about him. That's nothing to this. He looks like he's been carved from stone. “Dan, come on.”

 

He doesn't react.

 

“Dan,” Phil repeats, insistent. “We have to get PJ out of here, can you-?”

 

The door at the far end of the room opens with an echoing squeak. PJ shrinks away from Phil immediately, trying to lie back down, trying to make himself small. Phil gets to his feet. He thinks about the knives he has left and how quickly he could access them as the vampire who murdered Dan walks out of the shadows.

 

Part of him had expected her to look remarkable, to look like the monster he knows she is. She doesn't. She's just an ordinary looking person, dark blonde hair straggling across her shoulders, her eyes bright.

 

She's staring at Dan.

 

“There we go,” She says, softly. “There you are.”

 

Phil pulls his knife out of his pocket, gripping the handle tightly.

 

“Don't come any closer.”

 

The vamp stares at Dan for a few seconds, then looks at Phil.

 

“Or what?” She sneers, still walking towards them. “Gonna get me with your butterknife?”

 

Without even letting himself think about it, Phil throws the knife. She isn't expecting it, snarling when it ends up embedded in her shoulder, the handle juddering with the impact. Phil already has his second knife in his hand as she's tearing it out of her shoulder, throwing it to the ground with a clatter and moving towards him, rage and hunger twisting her features into something more like the inhuman mask he'd been expecting.

 

Phil's heart is thudding fast but he's thinking of the quiet place in his head, the calm place where he can fight and win, as he darts back across the room, leading her away from Dan and PJ. She's fast, faster than he'd been expecting, but dodging attacks has always been his strong point, so he ducks when she aims a sloppy punch at his head, managing to aim a kick at her stomach as he turns away. When he's back on two feet, stance as strong as he thinks it can be, he lashes out with his knife again – she's expecting it this time, but only just, pulling her face back just in time.

 

“I said I'd kill you,” He says, breathlessly. “And I meant it.”

 

She tries to punch him again and he's not so fast this time – she clips his cheekbone, hard enough that he knows it'll bruise but not enough to inhibit him in a fight. He punches back, hitting her hard in the face – hard enough that she falters, and a stupid thought crosses Phil's mind.

 

He thinks, _maybe we'll get out of this after all_.

 

There's a snarl behind him. Phil's first thought is that she must have backup, another vamp with her to take him and Dan down. Except she's smiling at him, a terrible smile, teeth long and sharp, and when the snarl comes again Phil lowers his knife and turns because he knows that she came here alone, knows that there's only one other vampire who could be making that noise.

 

Dan's standing there, gaze assessing but blank, fangs long and deadly, eyes trained on Phil. He's gone, just like he said. Just like he'd been afraid of. Nothing left but his body and his eyes, the most wonderful eyes Phil's ever seen, now sizing him up to wound and kill – the hands with the bitten fingernails that held Phil's at the beach, hands that stroked his back when they hugged and touched his arm when they laughed together, clenched into fists.

 

It nearly winds Phil. Nearly knocks the air out of him. He feels like he fell off the precipice after all and he's still falling.

 

Dan's gone.

 

The vamp's laughing, and the sound reaches Phil like it's coming from a long way away, like his head's underwater.

 

“Sorry,” She says, voice mocking. Phil's going to kill her, he really is. He's going to kill her and he's going to enjoy every sick little second. “I just couldn't help myself. You know how it is.”

 

Dan looks at her when she talks, still not moving.

 

“Kill him,” She says, softly. “You know you want to.”

 

Dan's head snaps back to him. Phil watches him sniffing the air, assessing Phil's scent. It isn't until Dan moves to attack that Phil moves too, firming his grip on the handle of his knife.

 

Vamps are always weakest when they attack, he thinks, on autopilot, slashing at Dan's left arm with his knife, enough to cut through the sleeve of his t-shirt. Except Dan's a strong fighter, and he's had blood in the last twenty four hours. He hits back fast, trying to grab hold of Phil's arm. Phil only just manages to avoid his grip.

 

The quiet place in his head is harder to reach now. It's full of Dan. Full of their conversations on the roof, Dan's soft smiles as he handed Phil cups of coffee, the way he cries at sad things on TV, how peaceful his face looks when he's sleeping, the smell of his hair. Phil feels so much that he feels numb with it all. He feels like every glancing blow this creature who used to be Dan aims at him can't hurt as much as how it feels inside, how it feels now that Dan's gone.

 

Dan's right here in front of him, snarling, desperate to kill him, but he's gone. Phil's never going to get to nudge their shoulders together as they walk, he's never going to get to go on another date with him, he's never going to be able to just hold hands with him in the street, same as every other couple out there in the world.

 

Phil's got nothing left to lose, not without Dan.

 

There's a moment when he realises this, when it hits him – the loss of Dan and everything that means – and Dan, the vamp he's fighting, manages to punch him in the face.

 

He reels, blinking, snapped out of it, and punches him right back with his left hand. He punches again, and again, finding strength from inside himself somewhere, reaching beyond how exhausted he is, down into the place where he's furious that this is happening to him, to them, to PJ.

 

Dan stumbles. His nose is bloody. Phil realises what he's doing, realises who he's hitting, and he falls back. It's like the sound fades back into the room and he can hear his own harsh breaths in the silence. His eyes sting and his knuckles hurt and he hates himself. Dan's gonna have a black eye, and his nose might be broken, and Phil did that. He did that.

 

The vamp who killed Dan laughs.

 

“Easy to snap, isn't it?” She taunts. “Looked like you were waiting to do that.”

 

Phil nearly snaps out a denial. He nearly tells her he'd never hit Dan, he'd never hurt him. The words sit in the back of his throat and he can't force them out. He can't think of anything beyond the pain in his hand and the fear that's chilling him to the bone, the realisation that despite all of his denial and all of his hope, he has to kill Dan, just like he promised he would.

 

The vamp that used to be Dan is deliberating, waiting to attack again. Phil's head is full of noise, full of potential attacks and memories of Dan's hands, the hands that now want to tear him limb from limb, touching him on the shoulder or the arm, a thousand little brushes of fingers he should've appreciated more when they happened.

 

He could throw his knife, but this is the last one he has left. The knife the other vamp pulled out of her shoulder is glinting on the ground a few feet away, but if he throws this one he doesn't know if he'll have time to fetch it before it's too late.

 

He doesn't have time to decide before Dan attacks. They fall into the rhythm of it, trading blows and dodging attacks. Phil doesn't want to think about the fact that after that first slash against Dan's arm he's trying to avoid using the knife in his hand, favouring kicks and dancing out of reach.

 

It's like his instinct to keep Dan safe is still burning bright inside him, even while Dan's fades away like writing in wet sand, the tide washing him away.

 

The vamp moves, all of a sudden. Phil can hear PJ straining, struggling – out of the corner of his eye he watches as he tries to scramble out of the way, kicking wildly with his unbroken leg. The vamp's making soothing, awful noises as she crouches down next to him and brushes his hair back off his shining forehead – and PJ's still trying to get away, cringing away from her.

 

Phil doesn't even think. He aims a kick at Dan's stomach, enough to wind him for a moment, then runs over to PJ. He has his blade at the vamp's throat before she's even managed to move any closer to Peej, forcing his way between them.

 

“Phil,” PJ breathes.

 

“You don't touch him,” He says. He wants nothing more than to force the knife blade forwards, right into her throat. He wants nothing more than to finish this right this second, while she doesn't have that stupid smile on her face.

 

It's the moment of hesitation that ends up being his downfall. Dan grabs his shoulder from behind and he turns to hit him in the face and that's when she manages to get to her feet. Just like that he's fighting both of them.

 

“You haven't asked me any of the stuff I thought you would,” She says, eyes bright as he slashes at her with his knife. “Y'know. Why did I kill your him in the first place, why am I hunting him...”

 

“Asking any of that would make it sound like I gave a fuck,” Phil manages to say. He lands a hit on Dan's weak arm with his knife – his shirt cuts and blood glints dark there all of a sudden, same as the blood crusting his nose and his upper lip.

 

She laughs, breathlessly.

 

“I didn't expect this,” She says. “A hunter. Didn't think he'd be so _stupid_ -”

 

He somehow manages to kick her in the face. God knows how he does it – in jeans, no less – but she reels, apparently as shocked as he is. Not that he has time to relish it because he's still trying to fight Dan, still trying to aim all of his attacks at his weaker side.

 

It's incomprehensible to him now, faced with a Dan who doesn't remember him, that he could just be gone. Just like that, everything that makes up a person, faded out of existence. Snuffed out like a candle. There has to be a way to bring him back, there has to be.

 

Smells. That's what the rumour is, what they say works, but smells of what? There's no record of it ever working, no record of any vamps ever coming back to themselves after being forced to be mindless killing machines.

 

His mum's perfume, maybe. Something familiar from his childhood. Nothing that's here – the only thing that's here is Phil, and he's getting more and more tired, the weight of the last forty eight hours finally dropping onto his shoulders and threatening to crush him. He doesn't know how long he can keep this up for – how long he can go before he has to give up.

 

Except he can't give up. For PJ and Martyn and his parents and the post-it with Louise's name on it, still on his laptop screen, for all the friends he hasn't spoken to in a long time, for Di and the way the air smells on cold mornings, fresh and bright, when the whole day's ahead and it feels like anything's possible.

 

He redoubles his attacks, somehow managing to grab hold of Dan's weaker arm and twist it hard, hard enough that he lets out an animalistic noise of pain, hard enough that his knees buckle and Phil manages to force him down, his knee pressed hard against his spine and the knife at his throat.

 

He can hear his own shallow breaths, loud in the quiet room, and he can smell that scent that's just Dan, just soap powder and something that smells like the flat, something that smells like seeing Dan in his pyjamas with his hair sticking up all over the place, smiling sleepily in the kitchen doorway. Something that smells like home.

 

He can't do it. He can't, no matter all the reasons why he should. His arm's tensed, ready to shove the blade home, and he can't make himself do it. His eyes are prickling and his throat feels thick.

 

 _This isn't something you can decide_ , Dan had said. _This is literally you chosing whether you're gonna kill me or I'm gonna kill you_.

 

If Phil can't kill Dan, then maybe that's just how it has to be. He steps back, blade loose in his hand. The other vamp's staring at him.

 

“Let PJ go,” Phil says. “Let him go and you can have me and Dan. You can do whatever you want to me, just let him go.”

 

“Shut the fuck up,” PJ says. “What are you doing?”

 

“I can't do it,” He says, hating how weak his voice sounds. “I can't – as long as you're safe that's all that matters-”

 

“Fuck off,” PJ says, trying to force himself to stand. He pales immediately, his leg sticking out at an awkward angle. Phil wants to rush over there and help him back onto the ground. He wants to run. He wants all of this to be over now. “Phil, you can't –”

 

“Just let him go,” He says, looking the vamp in the eye. She's staring at him, expression inscrutable. “He's nothing to do with this. It was me you wanted in the first place. That's right, isn't it? You thought you'd got Dan's boyfriend when you took him. Well, you didn't. It was me you wanted all along.”

 

And he'll never be Dan's boyfriend, never. They'll only ever have one date, walking by the beach, holding hands and eating ice cream. That's all Phil's ever gonna get. The second PJ's safe they're going to die here, alone in an industrial estate far from home. Phil never told Martyn any of it, never said goodbye to him properly when he could've.

 

He couldn't do anything right.

 

“Don't listen to him,” PJ says, desperate and tearful. “Take me, take – I'm – you can keep me as food, it's fine, I don't care, just let him go, please-”

 

“Shut up, PJ,” Phil says, harshly. “It's me or nothing. He's nothing to do with this.”

 

The vamp's quiet for a long moment.

 

“You're hardly in a position to be negotiating,” She says.

 

“You want to watch him kill me, don't you,” Phil says. “That's what you want. PJ's nothing to do with that.”

 

“I'm not going anywhere without you.”

 

“Shut the fuck _up_ , PJ.”

 

It's a weird feeling, accepting that he's going to die. There's always been that spark inside him, that desire to keep fighting, to keep going no matter what. It was always two parts fear and one part hunting instincts, the will to survive.

 

It's not that he doesn't want to live. Far from it, in fact. It's that he knows he can't kill Dan. He knows he won't be able to do it. But he'll be damned if he bows out without taking _her_ with him.

 

“Cute, really,” She says, slowly. “That you'd be making offers like that. Why would I let him go when I can keep your friend for food _and_ watch your boyfriend kill you?” She smiles. “I've always been a _have your cake and eat it_ kind of girl.”

 

She moves fast and so does he, throwing his knife. He doesn't have the element of surprise on his side anymore, though, and she catches it mid-throw, getting to his side faster than he'd have given her credit for. He doesn't realise what she's about to do until his shoulder's in an iron grip and there's a sharp pain in his forearm.

 

“There,” She says, softly.

 

Feeling dazed and stupid, Phil looks down at the cut in his arm, at the blood blooming in the wound, bright against his skin. With a feral, sharp-toothed smile, the vamp lowers her head to lick the wound. Phil tries to struggle out of her grip but Dan's right there, ready to fight him. There's nowhere to go.

 

Her teeth are sharp, cutting through his skin like it's nothing. He thinks perhaps PJ's shouting his name.

 

Phil's never been bitten before, not properly. He's had too many near misses to count, but never like this. He feels like his limbs are full of lead, like his head's thick and heavy and his blood's burning in his veins as she drinks and drinks and drinks.

 

Black spots swim at the edges of his vision. Blood loss, he thinks, mutely. Cut with his own knife. He experiences snapshots of unconnected memory. Martyn's face. The shotgun on the wall of his childhood home. Dan standing in the kitchen at the flat, a tea towel slung over his shoulder, looking like he's seconds away from laughing. PJ's head, bent over his sketchbook, his shoulders hunched.

 

“Peej,” He thinks he manages to say. “'M sorry.”

 

He feels drunk, and small. He's being swept away in the current.

 

This must be what dying feels like. It hurts, but less than he'd thought it might.

 

He watches the vamp's mouth forming words as she pulls away from his arm, her lips and chin red with his blood. He watches her offer his arm to Dan.

 

Phil's eyes flutter closed when Dan touches him, the brush of his fingertips deceptively gentle, enough to force him to relax in some sick way. Dan's gone, he knows that – Dan's gone and soon he will be too – but he can let himself pretend now. It can't hurt anyone if he's dead anyway.

 

The last thing Phil thinks of is kissing Dan by the roadside.

 


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was gonna try and be funny and cute here but the internet's been cutting out for the past hour so now my stress levels are ASTRONOMICAL and I can't be funny or cute I'm so mad I just need to post this before it goes off again holy fuck
> 
> needless to say I love each and every one of you and all of your comments make me so unbelievably happy, even though I'm a piece of shit who doesn't reply. I read all of them, I swear. You're all wonderful and the exact reason I got here, to the penultimate chapter of this monster <3 <3 thank you all so much <3
> 
> let's get through this

Once, in the kitchen in Phil's flat, Dan cleaned three bloody scratches on Phil's arm.

 

He never let himself touch Phil back then, not properly. He was too scared of Phil flinching away from his cold hands. But Phil had been bleeding, and Dan had wanted to help. More than that, he'd wanted to prove to himself that he could.

 

He'd cleaned the scratches and touched Phil's skin and the smell of Phil's blood had been a tang in the air, on his tongue when he opened his mouth to speak. Itsmelt the same as anyone else's, coppery and sharp, enough to make his gums ache with the effort of keeping his teeth hidden, with the urge to strike and bite.

 

Phil's blood. Not him, specifically. Dan hadn't thought anything of it at the time beyond blind, painful hunger. He didn't even think he'd remembered.

 

Being enthralled is like a veil falling over the whole world. Dan's dimly aware of everything, but it's distant and unimportant. Nothing hurts, nothing penetrates the fog that shrouds him. He feels numb and small, and the things he's vaguely aware of happening outside his shrouded corner of his mind don't matter. Nothing matters at all.

 

Then there's that scent in the air. Phil's blood.

 

Phil's blood, that metallic tang in the air. Memory stirs in Dan's mind, stronger than the hold she has over him.

 

He's lying in his bed at the flat and he can hear the soft, rhythmic lull of Phil's heartbeat from his own room, faint but comforting, always there in the back of Dan's head, a metronome, the rush of the tide.

 

He's walking home from the library with Phil and he's sneaking looks at him out of the corner of his eye, the way his hands are shoved into his pockets and he's smiling about some story he's telling, streetlamp light glinting off his glasses and his breath leaving his mouth in white clouds.

 

He's in the bathroom and Phil's feeding him substitute and stroking the back of his head and he's jammed against the sink and there's something sickeningly captivating about the way Phil's touching his hair while he drinks and drinks and drinks-

 

Dan's lips touch Phil's wrist and he slams back to the forefront of his mind, the fog lifting. Everything returns to him in a heart-twisting rush - the smell of Phil's blood and the weak, failing rush of his heart, the sound Dan's been relying on ever since they met to always keep time, stuttering and stalling, and the sound of someone crying across the room. PJ.

 

“There,” _She's_ saying, in a soft, soothing voice that might've had power over him once.

 

Dan's head feels fuzzy and strange – he feels like he just woke from a dream, and everything in the waking world is too brightly lit and loud, noises and sounds and smells assaulting his senses and leaving him disorientated.

 

Only one thing makes sense in the mess of noise and colour and scent – he can taste Phil's blood on his lips, and Phil's heart sounds much too soft.

 

Dan has a second to consider his options. He presses a kiss, closed-mouthed and terrified, to the wound on Phil's arm, then lets him go long enough to turn and punch the vamp in the face. He lets Phil go, lets him fall to the ground so he can punch again and again, the vamp so taken aback she doesn't react until he's landed a good few hits and she's stumbled to her knees, wheezing.

 

Dan rushes back to Phil then, gathering him up in his arms and feeling like the whole world's crashing down around his ears.

 

“No no no,” He says, voice weak and pathetic. “No no, no, hey, Phil, hey-”

 

Phil's eyes are closed and his skin's cold. Dan's dimly aware of PJ saying something but he's too busy clumsily holding his hand over the wound in Phil's arm that's oozing blood. He doesn't know enough to know whether that means he's lost too much if the blood isn't rushing anymore, he doesn't know how any of this works, he just doesn't _know_.

 

PJ's moving, he can hear the pained noises he's making trying to put his weight on his broken leg, dragging himself across the floor. Dan can't look away from Phil. God, he was always too pale but this is something different entirely, his skin greyish and strange looking.

 

He looks dead.

 

“No,” Dan says, numbly. Phil's wound is warm against his fingers – warmer than Dan is, anyway, the warmth of someone bleeding out. “No, no, Phil – please-”

 

“Dan,” PJ says, panting with exertion. “Dan, you need to calm down.”

 

PJ might aswell tell the sky not to rain, Dan thinks, hysterically. Phil feels so small in his arms, frail somehow, even though Dan knows that's not true, knows that Phil's the strongest person he knows, the strongest person he's ever met.

 

“Dan,” PJ says again, voice firm but quiet. He's managed to pull himself close enough to touch Phil's hair with a shaking hand – his face is wet with tears, eyes swollen, but he's not crying anymore. “Is his heart beating?”

 

Dan swallows around a gasp, feeling like air's being ripped from his lungs even though he doesn't even need it. He looks at PJ, barely seeing him, but listens all the same.

 

It's there. Phil's heartbeat, faint but persistent, still thudding in his chest.

 

“It's there,” Dan says, voice broken. “It's there, he's – Phil, Phil...”

 

He doesn't stir. He's lost too much blood.

 

“He's dying,” She says, from where she's sprawled on the floor. She pushes herself up slowly and her eyes are glinting with malice. “Took too much from him. I did all the work for you, all you had to do was finish him off – just a snack left in him now.”

 

Dan grabs PJ's wrist, pulling his hand over so he can keep pressure on Phil's wounded arm, touching the side of Phil's face and his jaw before he forces himself to let him go and stand up himself, turning to face the woman who killed him.

 

“He's strong,” Dan says. He feels weirdly calm and still, standing at the eye of the storm. “He'll be ok.”

 

He speaks with a confidence he doesn't feel, Phil's ailing heart thumping between his ears the way his own pulse used to.

 

“Whatever you say,” She says.

 

Her eye's swelling shut where Dan punched her and her lip's split, blackened blood mixing with the red of Phil's on her chin. There's something about the look she gives him all of a sudden, something sharp and magnetic – he can feel it tugging something inside him. He feels how he should be drawn to her, how he should be forced back to that place inside his mind where he's nothing but a spectator to the monster outside, but nothing happens.

 

“Won't work on me now,” He taunts. It feels horribly _good_ to bare his teeth at her, laughing at the way her face falls, smug smile quickly replaced by a snarl. She runs at him, attempting to grab hold of his arm. He kicks her in the leg, an instinctive move to throw her off. It only barely works – she manages to land a punch in the side of his head, hard enough that he sees stars. “Shouldn't have taken PJ like that, shouldn't have brought us both here-”

 

“Doesn't matter now anyway,” She says, evidently furious. “ _Oh, he's strong_. Strong enough to restart his own heart? It's about to give out, it doesn't matter whether you kill me or not-”

 

Dan cuts her off mid-sentence by grabbing her by the shoulder and holding on tight, trying to use all of his strength to throw her to the ground. He barely manages it – the fight with Phil's left him feeling shaken, everything hurting in some way, every inch of his skin thrumming with pain and the sound of Phil's heartbeat, faint but still beating, still fighting.

 

As long as Phil's still fighting, so will he.

 

He punches her in the stomach and she tries to kick him but he's quicker than she is, quick enough to dart out of reach, hopping a little on the balls of his feet. He can't stop thinking, thinking of everything this means, of all the times he dreaded this moment and all the times he longed for it in some sick way, the chance to finally get revenge on the woman who took everything away from him.

 

“Do you know how long I looked for you?”

 

Dan clenches his teeth and aims a punch at her face that she dodges, aiming one right back at him. He's not quick enough and it clips the side of his face, making his teeth rattle.

 

“I looked and I kept looking,” She says. It's like she's trying to plead with him somehow, even while they're trading furious blows. He swipes at her feet with his leg and she stumbles and he pins her to the floor with a snarl. “I only wanted to find you, that's all I wanted, that's-”

 

“You wanted me to kill my parents,” Dan tells her, a hand at her throat, pressing all of his body weight into the knee he has against her stomach. She chokes a little but he knows it's just for show – the hand at her throat can hurt, certainly, but the breaths she's still trying to gulp down are habit rather than necessity. “You brought PJ and Phil here and you wanted me to kill them. I would've by now if – if -”

 

If the impossible hadn't happened and Phil's blood hadn't brought him back to himself.

 

She makes a pitiful noise, mouth opening and closing, and against his better judgement Dan loosens his grip on her neck, wanting to hear her speak.

 

“I was alone,” She says, hoarsely. “You're telling me you've never been alone? You've never wanted someone, you've never-”

 

Dan grips hold of her throat tight then, moving in close so he can speak through gritted teeth.

 

“You wanted me to follow commands and kill people for you,” He hisses. “You wanted me to murder the people I care about. Don't pretend any of this shit was ever about being alone.”

 

She wheezes, trying desperately to draw breaths that she doesn't need, and the hatred rises in Dan like a wave, like something clawing to get out of him, how much he loathes her and what she did to him and loathes that even now she's acting like the victim, acting like Dan's stopping her from breathing when she doesn't even need to fucking breathe.

 

It's like the hatred fills him up so that he's gasping for air, like there's a hand around his own throat. He realises what he's doing and he lets her go, stumbling backwards, walking away.

 

Phil's heartbeat is still there, sure and steady, ticking away in the back of his mind. Dan watches PJ touching Phil's forehead with shaking hands out of the corner of his eye and he wants to scream.

 

“You wanna talk about being alone,” He says, quietly. “Let's talk about what you did to me. Before – before everything, before -” He swallows, feeling like there's something stuck in his throat. The understanding face of his therapist seems to swim before his eyes like a reflection on water. _Acknowledging what's happened to you is the first step_. “Before you _murdered_ me. I had people, I had a family, I had – I had a bunch of stuff that I didn't appreciate enough. God, I thought I was bored but it turns out I was just fucking _lucky_.”

 

He reaches a hand up to his mouth and his hand comes back black with his own blood.

 

“Having to run so you couldn't make me kill my parents. Being alone and hating myself all the fucking time. Too scared to – to let anyone get too close for so fucking long, knowing you'd eventually show up and force me to kill them. _That's_ loneliness.”

 

“You think I don't feel that?” She says. He scoffs and only just stops himself from going over there and grabbing hold of her again, tighter this time, til she can't talk even if he lets go. “You talk so much about all this terrible shit you've been through, blah blah blah, but you've had it easy.”

 

Dan moves over there before he can stop himself. She moves back, adopting a defensive stance, and just like that they're fighting again, rage burning hot inside Dan, obliterating all worry and common sense.

 

“You _murdered_ me.”

 

“And you didn't kill your precious parents,” She says. He must've hit her in the face at some point – dark blood's trickling from her mouth – she turns her head and spits it onto the floor. “But I did. He made me kill mine, the vamp who got me.”

 

It takes a second for Dan to make the connection.

 

“You're not...”

 

She shakes her head, letting out a mirthless laugh.

 

“No,” She says. “I wanted to do it. Before I started I – I was terrified, but once I got in there, I...” Her eyes are blank for a moment and she shakes her head, visibly snapping herself out of it.

 

Horror ripples through Dan, making his skin tingle.

 

“So he made you do that,” He says. “And you wanted to make me do the same.”

 

“Because I felt better when it was done,” She says. “I felt – I felt like I'd really moved on, like – like there was nothing tying me to being alive anymore.”

 

It's only then that Dan looks at her – really looks at her, under the dirt and the bright red of Phil's blood around her mouth. He thinks perhaps she'd been younger than him when she died. The thought makes him feel curiously numb.

 

“That was never gonna be me,” He says. “I was never gonna kill them and – and feel better. I didn't want to die-”

 

“Neither did I,” She says, and punches him in the face. He feels something in his nose snap, pain making his head swim, and she's still coming, with a kick in the ribs hard enough to make him hit the ground. “I didn't want to be like this either. What exactly makes you special? What makes you think you're better than me? _Oh, I wouldn't have felt better, I didn't want to die_ , all your fucking _whining_. And for what? Your boyfriend's bleeding out over there and you're too fucking busy to get down off your high horse to even do anything about it-”

 

Dan musters up enough strength to throw her off where she'd been climbing on top of him, rolling away and wheezing into the concrete floor for a second.

 

“Phil,” He croaks out, pitifully.

 

“He can't help you,” She taunts, and aims a sharp kick at his ribs. He feels something snap and he thinks he might throw up. “I killed him. I killed him-”

 

She kicks him again and again, and the pain's brighter than a migraine. He feels like he has nothing left, no energy in him to fight, to get up and stop this.

 

Something glints on the ground next to him. It takes him a second to orientate himself, a second to reach up, blood-wet hand grasping hold of Phil's discarded knife and slashing at her ankle just as she draws back for another kick. She cries out in pain and it gives him enough time to roll over quickly and leap to his feet, feeling like everything inside him is broken.

 

Phil's heart's still beating. It's still beating. Gritting his teeth in determination, Dan attacks again, with more fervour this time. There's a satisfying second when her eyes widen in surprise as he slashes the knife at her, catching her arm when she's not fast enough to move out of the way.

 

All Dan can think is that he won't let her kill him twice. He won't give her the satisfaction. He thinks of Phil as he dodges and ducks around her blows – thinks about watching Phil train PJ on the rooftop, how breathtaking he is when he fights – how breathtaking he always is. Phil's faltering heartbeat is ticking like a clock, and Dan needs to finish this fast so that they can take him somewhere and make sure he's alright.

 

He won't let her kill Phil either.

 

“You haven't killed him,” Dan says, grabbing hold of her arm when she swings a punch at his face. He twists her arm the same way he saw Phil do once, when he accidentally broke a vamp's arm. He feels bones give and he grins, sharp and vicious, when hurt flits across her face. “You fucked everything up, didn't you? You didn't kill him and you didn't kill me either.”

 

“Please,” She says, when he forces her to the ground. “Please, please...”

 

“Oh, feeling like being nice now?” Dan says, viciously. “You're pathetic. You fucked everything up and you're still alone. I have – I have people who care about me and – and I have my family and I have – God, I have everything. And what do you have?” He leans close, mouth by her ear, holding her arm tightly enough to bruise. “Nothing.”

 

“Don't,” She says, weakly, when he presses the point of Phil's knife up to her throat. “Please, don't, I'm – please...”

 

Dan wants to. He wants to shove the blade through her throat, he wants to finish this at last. He wants to take back what was taken from him.

 

But that's not how the world works, he thinks. Killing her won't make his heart start beating again. It won't help Phil. He's wanted her gone for so long but now that he's here, now that the knife's at her throat and her life's in his hands, he suddenly doesn't want to do it.

 

He doesn't want to kill her. More than anything, he realises, he wants her to suffer.

 

“No,” He says out loud, softly. “No. It's too quick.”

 

With trembling, aching fingers, he reaches down to unfasten his belt, the same way he saw Phil do once, and uses it to bind her arms together. Halfway through him roughly tightening the leather she starts crying, dry, racking sobs, curled up face-down on the cold concrete floor.

 

Dan gets to his feet and watches her and feels nothing at all.

 

-

 

PJ calls an ambulance and the undead response hotline. Dan can't do anything for a little while beyond holding Phil close and trying to cry as quietly as possible, feeling hopeless and overwhelmed by everything.

 

“...White Bar Industrial Estate,” PJ's saying, his own eyes glistening with unshed tears. “Yeah, er. One vamp, hostile, I guess, and, er, we need an ambulance. Really fast. Our friend, he's – he's lost a lot of blood, we don't know what to do...”

 

Dan closes his eyes. The tears that fall are cold, his throat tight and painful.

 

“I told him to kill me,” He says, softly. “I told him, he promised he was gonna kill me, he _promised_...”

 

“He couldn't do it,” PJ says, putting the phone on the floor.

 

“So fucking stupid,” Dan says, feeling like the words are being ripped out of him. “I should never have...I shouldn't have...”

 

He loses everything he was gonna say in favour of burying his face in Phil's hair for a little while, where he doesn't have to look at PJ's flushed face and the devastated look there.

 

“It's gonna be ok,” PJ says, touching his back gently. “He's still alive, Dan. They said they'll be ten minutes, that's barely any time at all. It's all gonna be fine.”

 

Dan just stays like that for a little while, smelling Phil's hair and wishing he didn't exist. He wishes he was nothing at all, that he couldn't feel anything. The pain in his ribs and his nose is nothing to how it feels inside, holding Phil so close with no response, knowing he's just clinging on and any second he could fall away to a place Dan can't reach, a place Dan can't bring him back from.

 

He's shaking so much that it takes him a moment to realise that some of the movement isn't actually him.

 

“Dan.”

 

“Phil,” PJ says, dashing tears out of his eyes as Dan pulls back enough to look at him, at the slow blinking of his eyes. There's no brightness there – there's something dulled about them, something exhausted and ill, but Dan thinks he's never seen anything more beautiful in his life than the bluest eyes he's ever seen.

 

“Phil, Phil,” He says, stupidly. “Oh God, fuck, Phil...”

 

Phil blinks slowly for a moment, taking in little wheezing breaths.

 

“You're back.”

 

“Yeah,” Dan says. When he blinks tears slide out of his eyes - he ignores them in favour of touching the skin at the corner of Phil's mouth, watching the erratic flutter of his eyelashes. “You did it. You brought me back.”

 

Phil smiles. It looks like it hurts.

 

“That's good,” He says, voice weak. “Peej?”

 

"Here," PJ says, shuffling closer with a pained noise, grabbing hold of Phil's hand and squeezing tight. "Right here, ok?"

 

"Don't put pressure on your leg," Phil tells him, slowly. "Try and - try and keep the weight off it."

 

"Shut up," PJ says, with a tearful laugh.

 

Phil smiles at him and his eyes slowly flicker back to Dan.

 

“You should've killed me,” He says. “This wasn't how it was meant to go, you were meant to kill me. Fuck's sake, Phil.”

 

"Like I was gonna do that," Phil says. Each word is a clear effort, each breath rattling hollowly in his chest. "Could never..." He shakes his head. "Love you too much."

 

"Don't," Dan says. "Don't - don't say things like that -"

 

"S'true," Phil says, reaching up to touch Dan's face. His hand's sticky with his own blood. "Is she-?”

 

“Couldn't do it,” Dan says. She's still sprawled on the ground where he left her, her shoulders shaking every so often. “It's quicker than she deserves.”

 

“That's,” Phil closes his eyes. For a long moment, Dan thinks he's fallen unconscious again. “That's the difference between you and people like her. You – you're not a killer, Dan. Not really.”

 

Dan just shakes his head, more tears falling.

 

“Shut up,” He says. “Fucking look at you, you're – you can barely move and that's – that's _my_ fault-”

 

“No,” Phil says. “It's - it's worth it. You can go to your parents now, they're safe."

 

"Phil, stop," Dan says. "The ambulance is gonna be here soon, ok?"

 

"I don't mind," Phil says. He sounds exhausted, voice getting weaker and weaker. "You're safe. You're you again. S'all that matters.”

 

His eyes are sliding closed again, so Dan grabs hold of his free hand, panic gripping him.

 

“You have to stay with us,” He says. “Come on, Phil. You have to. Not long now at all, not long now. Come on, Phil.”

 

But Phil's visibly sliding out of consciousness, eyelids flickering shut again, and maybe that's what makes Dan say it.

 

“I love you,” He says, quietly, like he's telling a secret. Tears are running down his face and he's dimly aware that PJ's crying too. “I love you, ok? You – you're a fucking idiot and you should've killed me when you had the chance and – Jesus, Phil, I love you so much, please.”

 

Dan holds Phil close, muffling his sobs in his shoulder, until the ambulance arrives.

 


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's over. I cried finishing this, I'm not gonna lie to you guys. I'm exceptionally tragic. I don't quite know what to say here - there's so much to say!! Thank you all so much for sticking with me for this long, for tolerating badly scheduled, irregular updates and my failure to reply to literally any comments despite the fact that I adore and read every single one and - ugh, just thank you all so so much. I hope this chapter makes up for the sadness.
> 
> a brief sidenote: I know nothing about medical shit. I'm just...throwing that out there. I attempted some hamfisted medical research for this chapter but honestly my brain leaked and I'm lazy. Forgive me. There are vampires, I'm waiving the rules of hospitals for this one. also there are probably mistakes - when the crying started I stopped editing so if there's anything awful I promise I'll get to it, I just want to release this into the wild already
> 
> Hope you all have the most wonderful day. On with the ending <3 <3

Someone's touching Phil's hair.

 

He feels numb and distant and small. He feels like maybe he's dreaming.

 

If this is death, it isn't so bad. It feels just like the way his mum used to touch his hair when he was very little. Maybe this is the part where he relives all of his memories. He's just hoping the whole, life flashing before your eyes thing glosses over his high school years when he drifts off again.

 

-

 

“Phil?” A voice is asking. “Phil, can you hear me?”

 

Phil can hear them, but he doesn't recognise the voice. It's not enough to get him to force himself to open his eyes, not when his eyelids feel so heavy.

 

Perhaps he isn't dead, he thinks. He can hear a buzz of conversation and the occasional inexplicable beeping noise. Dying wouldn't feel like this. He feels like maybe something hurts, but for now he's too numb to focus on it properly.

 

The last thing he thinks before he's unaware again is that he might actually be alive after all.

 

-

 

He doesn't know how much time has passed when he opens his eyes.

 

It takes a long moment for him to adjust to the light. Everything around him is a strange blur. On instinct, he reaches out next to him and feels around when his hand hits a surface. Sure enough his fingers eventually skim what feel like his glasses, miraculously intact, and he pulls them on, already guessing where he is thanks to the stale smell of chemicals in the air.

 

He's in hospital. In a hospital bed, with a vase of flowers on his bedside table.

 

It hurts to turn his head but it feels more like an ache, like he's been still for too long. When he looks to the other side it's to see his mum.

 

She's sitting slumped in a chair by the bed, sleeping. Phil looks at her for a long moment, feeling like he didn't wake up after all. He must still be dreaming – there's no other way his mum would be sat right there, her hair falling over her face. There's a magazine on her lap and she looks tired, one hand on the bed next to his. Phil tries to move, shift his legs. Everything feels like it should hurt - he just feels unaccountably heavy, like his blood's been replaced with rocks.

 

His blood. Welling up in a wound in his arm and the vamp lowering her head, the gentle touch of Dan's fingers, Dan's blank, unrecognising eyes -

 

His head throbs and he winces out loud in pain. The sound makes his mum stir, blinking awake.

 

"Mum," Phil says, when she looks at him. He can tell now that she's been crying. "Mum, what...? What're you-?”

 

“You're in hospital,” She tells him, gently, shuffling her chair closer so she can touch his arm, his shoulder. “How much do you remember?”

 

“Everything,” Phil says, after a moment's consideration. “I. I stole Martyn's car. Is he-?”

 

“He's the one who called us,” She says. “Your dad's here too. Oh, Phil.”

 

“I'm sorry.”

 

“Sorry for what?”

 

“For – you and dad coming all this way, and – and worrying you, I guess. Everything. I'm sorry.”

 

“It's fine,” She says, touching his hair. “It's more than fine, sweetheart. Oh, Phil. I'm so glad you're awake.”

 

“How long...?”

 

“A few days,” She says, her eyes bright with unshed tears. “Blood loss, Phil. One of my own kids, with blood loss. They had to give you God knows how many transfusions, I – what were you _thinking_?”

 

“I wasn't,” Phil says. “I couldn't, I – God, it was such a mess, mum.”

 

She pulls him into a hug, and neither of them say anything for a while.

 

“It's good to see you,” He says, his voice thick. “I – I'm sorry I haven't visited.”

 

“All that matters is that you're safe,” She says, not letting him go. “That's all I care about.”

 

He closes his eyes and lets her hold him close for a while, feeling safe for the first time in what feels like a long time.

 

-

 

A nurse comes in to check on him after a little while of the two of them talking, Phil feeling unaccountably exhausted for some reason. He thinks perhaps not sleeping or eating properly in days and then having a near death experience might do that to a person.

 

He asks the nurse if he's ok to get up and use the bathroom, even though he feels like he can't move, and she tells him it's fine.

 

“I'll help him,” His mum says. When he pulls a face, she says, “Just to the door, it's right there.”

 

The room has a toilet attached to it, a windowless room with a red cord hanging by the toilet flush just in case he falls over and needs to call for help, he's guessing. His mum leaves the door open just a little (“In case you need me,” She says, when he protests. “I'll cover my eyes. Not that it's anything I haven't seen before...”) and he shuffles to the toilet, dragging his wheeled drip along with him. He doesn't like being attached to it but he'd been assured by the nurse that it was necessary, despite the fact that he keeps thinking about what'll happen if he forgets it's there and tries to walk quickly and just tears the needle right out of his arm.

 

He uses the toilet, dimly aware of his purple-and-red reflection in the mirror above the sink, and when he's done and washing his hands he finally sees what he looks like, in all of his black eye, bruises-and-cuts glory. He looks like, well. Like he had a really big fight with someone and lost, which is pretty much painfully accurate.

 

“Like you've gone ten rounds with Mike Tyson,” His mum says, from the doorway.

 

“ _Mum_.”

 

“Oh, come on, you're done now,” She says. He can't look away from how awful he looks – aside from that there's the growth of several day's stubble on his chin. It looks more like a beard now than anything else. His fingers twitch with wanting to shave it all off, but even that wouldn't make him look any better right now. “It'll all heal.”

 

“I need to shave.”

 

“I mean, I didn't want to say anything,” His mum says, pulling a face that means she agrees with him. “I thought maybe you'd decided to have a beard since I last saw you.”

 

Since she last saw him. That was longer ago than he'd like.

 

“I'm really sorry,” He says, and means it. “I should've visited. I really should've.”

 

She shakes her head.

 

“It's fine, sweetheart. Honestly.”

 

She helps get him back into bed and gets him a cup of water. He sips it slowly, thinking.

 

“Are, er,” He starts, hesitantly. “Are PJ and Dan around? Are they – are they ok?”

 

“They're still here,” She says. “And they're fine. They – I think they wanted to give us some time with you when we got here.” She pauses. “I like them. From what I've seen. They obviously care about you.”

 

Phil thinks about that while he drinks his water, wondering what exactly she's seen of PJ and Dan that made her say that. He hopes they're alright – he thinks of PJ's broken leg, and the way Dan's nose had definitely broken under his fist. Just the thought makes him feel sick.

 

He puts the water down, feeling tired. His mum strokes his hair off his forehead. It takes him a moment to realise that her hand's shaking.

 

"When we got here and we saw you and - and they said you'd lost all that blood, I thought - we thought..." She shakes her head and when she closes her eyes tears slide down her cheeks. He reaches out and holds her hand tight, feeling helpless and fragile.

 

"Mum," He says, tears welling up in his own eyes just because she's crying. "I'm fine, I'm-”

 

“Oh, I know,” She says. “You're a Lester. We don't go down without a fight.”

 

“No,” Phil agrees, wiping his eyes. “I love you."

 

She laughs, tearfully, and hugs him again.

 

"Love you too," She says. When she pulls back she sniffs, wiping her own eyes. "Even though I need to have a word with you about - about correct hunting practice -"

 

"Mum-"

 

"And being so daft and stubborn you wouldn't ask for help from your own brother, not to mention worrying him half to death and stealing his car-"

 

" _Mum_ -"

 

"I'm just - you're alright and that's all that matters."

 

He blinks and wipes his eyes. He's alright. It won't sink in, won't settle properly in his head, the idea that he's fine. Everything's fine.

 

He thinks about Dan and Peej. _They're fine_. He wants to see them, to talk to them - to talk to Dan.

 

He remembers Dan holding him close and thinking he was going to die and feeling so terrifyingly calm about it. Death has always scared him but in that moment when Dan and PJ were with him he just...accepted it.

 

Now he's alive. He's ok. His brain can't keep up with the switching of the tracks.

  
“Mum,” He says, after a moment's deliberation, caught up on you're alright and that's all that matters. “You, er. You know Dan? You know he's a vamp, right?”

 

She gives him a look that makes it plain how ridiculous he's being to assume that she didn't know that about five seconds after meeting him.

 

“Yeah, sorry. Er. PJ's my friend. He's – he's amazing, he's – he's the best. And Dan too, it's just – Dan isn't _just_ my friend.”

 

She just nods. His face must betray his surprise because she laughs a little.

 

"I could tell,” She says. “Believe me.”

 

"Oh,” Phil says, smiling a little, feeling himself flush. He shakes his head. He can't process the colliding of his two worlds, of Dan and his mum interacting and his mum just smiling about it like everything's fine. "It's. It's not, like. That wasn't why I wasn't coming back to visit, or anything. I mean - it's." He swallows, wondering if now's the best time to get into all of his issues with hunting. "I didn't know how you'd take it."

 

"Me neither, to be honest," She says, honestly, still stroking his hair. There's a pause. "You need someone who cares about you. That's all I wanted, you know? Just someone good enough for you."

 

"He is," Phil says, feeling himself getting choked up again. "I - I promise he is, mum, I -"

 

"I mean, I didn't exactly think you'd do such reckless things for someone you weren't sure about," She says. "And that's - that's enough for me."

 

-

 

He ends up telling her everything. Or at least, a vague summary of it all, from running into Dan at the demonstration and then the vamp encounter where Dan had essentially saved his life (he might labour over that for longer than is strictly necessary, just to cement Dan in her favour), meeting PJ and training him and then the sudden rush when the vamp found Dan.

 

She just listens. It feels good to tell her everything - feels the way he used to when he was a kid, sitting up at the kitchen table, swinging his legs and telling her all about his day. They're just laughing about some training anecdote with PJ when his dad and Martyn get back.

 

His dad hugs him and he cries a little more, smelling the same old aftershave as always and telling him he's sorry too.

 

"Nothing to be sorry for," His dad tells him, and ruffles his hair like he's five again. Then he's left looking at Martyn, who's holding two cups of coffee at the foot of the bed.

 

"Martyn," He says. "I'm so sorry. About your car, and - and everything, I'm sorry."

 

Martyn puts the coffees down on the tray table at the end of the bed.

 

"For the record, I'm _so f_ ucking mad at you-"

 

"Martyn!" Their mum chides, like they're both still kids.

 

"And I can't believe you'd be so _stupid_ and not let me help you, not to mention _stealing my car_ -"

 

"I couldn't let you get hurt," Phil says. "Not like last time, I - there was already too much to lose, I couldn't do it. I'm so sorry."

 

Martyn just rushes forwards and hugs him hard enough to hurt.

 

"You're an idiot," He says, still hugging him. "Don't do that to me again."

 

"I only took the car 'cause I-"

 

"I don't give a shit about the car, fuck's sake, Phil." He pulls back. "Next time you wanna get into some near death situation you tell me all about it, alright?"

 

"I'm not planning on it," Phil says, smiling a little. "But yeah, whatever."

 

Privately he thinks he's gonna do his level best to make sure nobody he cares about is ever in any kind of danger again, but Martyn doesn't need to know that.

 

He doesn't know when exactly he starts nodding off, but there's something soothing about his mum holding his hand and Martyn touching his other arm, the smell of coffee in the air.

 

-

 

He can hear a scratching noise before he opens his eyes. It makes him think of being in his childhood bedroom, listening to the hamsters scratching around in their cages. Except this is a different kind of scratching, and he never felt this terrible as a kid. He still feels like he got hit by a bus, all of his limbs aching like he's just one giant bruise.

 

He wonders how exactly they saved him. He'd been so sure he was gonna die. If it wasn't for the steady beating of his heart he'd think maybe he really had died after all, like Dan.

 

Dan. Phil opens his eyes.

 

PJ's sitting by his bedside in a hospital wheelchair, drawing. The light drifting in through the window opposite the bed is casting a yellow square on the table at the foot of the bed, and PJ looks pale in the brightness. Pale and bruised but miraculously alive, tongue poking through his teeth in concentration as he draws. It's something Phil's witnessed a thousand times or more, looking across at the armchair on quiet afternoons in the flat to see PJ drawing, entirely absorbed in the activity, always taking a moment to come back to himself if someone tried to engage him in conversation.

 

Phil watches him for a little while. He doesn't know if he has the energy to say anything. His throat feels dry and there's that throbbing ache still in the back of his head. He looks down at his own arms for a moment, white on white blankets, and feels disconnected when he looks at the drip, still neatly taped into his arm. Of course. He's in hospital because he nearly died, and PJ -

 

Peej's neck has a white dressing neatly taped to it, small cuts on his face showing up stark against his skin. There's a bruise on his cheekbone, and when he reaches up to push his hair off his forehead his hands are similarly covered in bandages, so much so that Phil's surprised he can hold a pen.

 

It takes him a little while to notice that Phil's awake. When he does, he puts the notebook and pen down on the bed and wheels closer so he can grab hold of Phil's hand.

 

“Hi,” Phil says, his voice little more than a croak.

 

“Hi,” PJ says, and grins. Phil's powerless to do anything other than smile back because PJ's alive, he's alive and he's safe and they're both gonna be fine. He squeezes Peej's hand probably harder than he should considering the bandages, but PJ just squeezes right back. “God, it's good to see you actually awake. How are you feeling?”

 

Phil considers that for a moment. There's a weird chemical taste in his dry mouth and he thinks he might be hungry. He doesn't have any idea when he last ate, doesn't even remember it. Buying food at petrol stations on the motorway could've happened a thousand years ago to a stranger.

 

“Tired,” He admits, after a moment. “How about you?”

 

“Alright,” PJ says, with a shrug. “Just. I dunno, glad to be here. Glad to be anywhere.”

 

Phil knows exactly what he means.

 

“Me too,” He says. Then, feeling his throat prickle treacherously, he continues, “I thought she'd killed you, Peej. Before we...” He swallows. “I dunno.”

 

“I thought so too,” PJ says, honestly, smile fading. “I, um. It was my own stupid fault. I tried to come after you guys, I thought – I thought I was being so stupid by letting a place get to me, so I got out of the van and – and, well.”

 

“She got you,” Phil finishes, quietly.

 

PJ nods.

 

“I tried to tell her I'd been travelling alone but she didn't believe me,” He says. “And – and then I tried to tell her it was just me and Dan. I dunno what I was thinking, I thought maybe if she only asked for Dan you could've got away or – or got help, or something.”

 

“I messed that up,” Phil tells him. He explains what happened after PJ was gone – about Dan's gunshot wound, them returning to the burning van and Martyn driving them to the hospital.

 

“She knew I wasn't him,” He says, recalling the phone call in the waiting room with the bone-deep fear of someone remembering a terrifying nightmare that's still too close for comfort. “And – and then I knew we both had to come and get you...”

 

He trails off, feeling sick all of a sudden.

 

“You were gonna die,” PJ says, and his voice is unsteady all of a sudden, bright smiles of moments ago forgotten. “You – you – I didn't know what to do when you started talking about letting me go. All of that training and I was fucking _useless_ -”

 

“She broke your _leg_ , Peej.”

 

“And you were just gonna let her kill you,” PJ says. Phil holds his hand tight, reaching over so he can cover their joined hands with another. The movement hurts, pulls muscles in his shoulders he didn't even know were aching, but he has to.

 

“I wanted you to be ok,” Phil says. “You didn't ask to be dragged into any of that, you didn't -”

 

“I wouldn't wanna be ok if it was at the expense of you guys,” PJ says. “I never wanted that. God, Phil.”

 

Phil closes his eyes and shakes his head.

 

“Didn't know what else to do,” He says.

 

They're quiet for a moment.

 

“When she got Dan,” PJ says, quietly. “I thought we were fucked. Like, I thought that was it.”

 

“So did I,” Phil says, remembering Dan's blank, enthralled eyes. “I – I don't even know how it – how he...I don't know.”

 

“Neither does anyone,” PJ tells him. “Dan, he – he hasn't really talked about it. Nobody wants to ask him.”

 

“Where is he?”

 

“Around somewhere,” PJ promises. “He's been here the whole time you were asleep. Since your mum and dad left, at least. You're only allowed, like, three visitors at once.”

 

“Where did they...?”

 

“Oh, just to get food or something, I think. Said they'd be back as soon as they could.”

 

Phil nods. He can't wrap his head around it all still – about his parents and Dan and PJ just hanging around together, all brought here because Phil – well, he nearly died.

 

He thinks about the sharp pain of the knife slicing through his arm, watching the gash start to bleed in an almost disconnected way.

 

It feels like he was so certain that he was going to die, that he'd accepted it and made peace with the idea, that now to be faced with a bright future in which he very categorically isn't dead is hard to deal with.

 

“I know,” PJ says, quietly, out of nowhere. When Phil looks at him, almost worried he'd said something out loud by accident, he adds, “When I got out of the farm, I couldn't deal with the idea that I wasn't dead. You know? Not in a bad way, I just...I'd accepted that I was gonna die just to make everything easier. And it did. But then when I was out and I wasn't gonna die...I dunno. It's hard.”

 

Phil stares at him.

 

“That's it,” He says. “That's – that's exactly it. How did you know?”

 

“Lucky guess,” PJ says, and squeezes his hand tightly. “You'll get used to it. We both will. It's – it's like we've been given a gift, right? Extra time that we didn't think we'd have. Just – just think of all the stuff you can do when you get out of this place.”

 

He can see Dan. Talk to him. Look him in the eyes and see _him_ there, not the mindless vamp who he'd fought with in the warehouse. Just Dan.

 

He can go to the library – that is, if they'll take him back after his prolonged and unexplained absence. Maybe if he limps in there looking the way he does right now and really hams up his injuries, Di might take pity on him and put a good word in.

 

Di. The smell of the books and the quietness between the shelves at three in the morning, and the taste of coffee when he's just woken up and how wonderful it feels to lie in bed after he's had a shower, feeling so clean and relaxed it's like he's floating under the bedcovers.

 

Walking home in the early hours of the morning. Watching TV until his eyes droop and Dan or PJ has to nudge him to get him to go to bed. Ordering pizza. Laughing over something stupid online.

 

It's like he can't quite believe it, like he's looking at the world with new eyes, realising how wonderful it all was all along. Realising that the small things are perhaps the most important, and have been from the start.

 

“I'm gonna thrash you at Mario Kart,” Phil says, after a moment.

 

PJ laughs.

 

“I know you lost a lot of blood but I didn't know it caused amnesia. I'm way better at Mario Kart than you.”

 

“Shut _up_.”

 

They're still laughing, stupidly, when the door creaks open. It's Martyn, smiling a little, and Phil's about to ask him to ask someone if he's allowed to drink coffee when Dan walks into the room behind him, and the question dies on his tongue.

 

Phil feels like all the noise in the world has gone, replaced by strange, underwater sounds. Looking at Dan he remembers everything in sharp relief – Dan, grey-faced in a hospital bed, their conversation by the roadside, losing him to enthralment and not being able to deal with it, not being able to accept that a personality so big, a person so important, could be deleted out of existence quite so easily.

 

Dan holding him close and crying, tears falling cold onto his face.

 

Dan here, now, looking for all the world like nothing terrible happened to him in his life, all wounds healed. He's looking at Phil, expression inscrutable, just standing as still as a statue, like this is some sort of spaghetti western face-off.

 

Phil's dimly aware of Martyn wheeling Peej out of the room and the chatter of voices on the corridor outside sounding in the quiet for a moment before the door swings shut behind them.

 

All of a sudden, Phil doesn't know what to say. He doesn't have anything. There are no words on the tip of his tongue, not a single quip or joke or important thing in his head. It's like his mind's just one giant blank, nothing but Dan's scorched black shirt and the look on his face.

 

“So you met my mum,” Phil says, stupidly.

 

Dan blinks, then smiles.

 

“Yeah,” He says, taking one cautious step closer, resting his hand on the table at the foot of the bed like he needs to touch something to keep himself there. “I, um. I don't think it was the best first impression I've ever made.”

 

“I mean, you're still alive, so,” Phil jokes. Dan's eyes are bright and he's just looking at Phil in a way that makes him suddenly feel uncomfortably warm. “I'm kidding, she wouldn't have killed you. I mean – she said something about you and Peej being good friends, so. That's, like, wild praise from her. You're fine.”

 

“Good,” Dan says, taking one more step closer. He touches the blankets on the bed, looking down at his hand. He's close enough now that Phil could move his leg and kick him in the wrist, if he thought about it. “I, er. I dunno what to say.”

 

“Me neither,” Phil admits, softly.

 

“I thought you were dead,” Dan says, flatly. It's like that one sentence opens the flood gates. “That's – I thought I'd lost you, I thought – and I felt so _useless_ , I felt like I couldn't do anything, and they said you needed blood and all I could think was I didn't have any I could give you, and – and - that if you died it'd be my fault.”

 

“Hey,” Phil says, and does nudge him in the wrist with his foot after all, just so he'll look him in the eye. “Not dead. Not even, like, remotely close to being dead.”

 

Dan just looks at him.

 

“You look like someone threw you in a blender, Phil.”

 

“And I'm fine,” Phil says. “I'm – I'm more than fine. _We're_ fine. You're here and I'm here and – and – where's _she_?”

 

He'd been afraid to ask but the question just spills out of him, unplanned.

 

“Dunno,” Dan says, dispassionately. “Undead response team took her away. I told them everything – as much as I could, anyway. Doesn't matter. She's a red class vamp who basically killed you, that's enough to get her put away for a long time.”

 

Phil didn't even know that the possibility that she might've got away was something that had worried him until he sighs, closing his eyes for a second.

 

“She can't hurt you anymore,” He explains, when Dan frowns a little. “That's – that's all, she. You're safe.”

 

Dan swallows – Phil watches the movement in his throat – and looks away from him again.

 

“It's good to see you,” Phil says, feeling like this reunion isn't going the way he'd wanted it to. “I. When she enthralled you I thought that was it, I thought you were...” He trails off.

 

“You didn't kill me though,” Dan says. He looks up at Phil. It sounds like an accusation. “If – if you thought that was it then why not just – you had the chance to kill me and you – you didn't.”

 

“You're saying that like you wish I had,” Phil says, feeling cold.

 

“I'm – I'm saying it like – like you could've died and it was because you didn't kill me and I – I can't believe you'd be so _stupid_.”

 

“I'm not dead,” Phil reminds him, raising his voice a little. “I. I remembered what you said, about it being a choice between you killing me and me killing you. And I – I didn't want to die but. I just couldn't do it. I'd.” His throat hurts, all of a sudden, and his eyes are stinging. He thinks maybe he's cried enough these past few days to last him a lifetime. “I just lost you, like – the second she enthralled you I lost you and I just couldn't do it again, I couldn't lose you a second time, I'm sorry, I know I promised but I just couldn't -”

 

Dan moves suddenly, from his space at the side of the bed to perching right next to Phil, pulling him into his arms. Phil just goes, holding onto him tightly and hiding his face in his shirt, because he thought he'd lost this – he thought he'd lost _Dan_ , that they couldn't have this again, so sue him for closing his eyes and shaking a little when Dan touches cool hands to his back, his hair, the nape of his neck.

 

“I'm sorry,” Dan says, voice soft. “Fuck's sake, I'm – I'm sorry, I just – I just, hey,” He pulls back a little, far enough to wipe Phil eyes with gentle fingers. “I was just so worried, Jesus, I thought – I don't even know what I thought, I just – you don't know how messed up you look, Phil.”

 

Phil laughs, watery and stupid sounding.

 

“You really have to work on your pickup lines,” He says. “That's terrible, Jesus Christ, Dan. And believe me, I know.” He sniffles. “Went to the bathroom before when mum was here. I need to shave, like, yesterday, it's disgusting.”

 

“Shut up. You look as good as you can expect under the circumstances,” Dan says, his voice fond. He leaves his fingers there, gently touching Phil's face, and Phil closes his eyes and leans into his hands like a touch-starved cat. “I'm sorry. I don't – I didn't mean it like, _oh, I wish you'd killed me_. I'm glad you didn't. God, I'm glad. I just...I'm mad that you risked yourself to – to keep me alive.”

 

“What?” Phil says. “So you're the only one out of the two of us allowed to, like, attempt to sacrifice himself to save the other? That's not how it works. You were gonna die if I killed you to save myself, and that's fine? Your logic's flawed.”

 

Dan doesn't say anything, and the longer the silence goes on the more words grow in Phil's throat, words he's almost afraid to say.

 

He knows exactly what he's going to say. He knows it like he knows his own name, and the fear of saying it – the fear of the words spilling out of him just now, here, in the hospital, while Dan cradles his face in his hands – makes his heart stutter in his chest.

 

“I love you,” He says. When Dan doesn't say anything straight away, he adds, “Feels good to say that when we're not in, like, mortal peril.”

 

“There shouldn't be any peril to begin with,” Dan says. He touches Phil's bottom lip with his thumb and Phil shudders all the way down to his toes. “Me too. I mean. Same. I mean – I love you.”

 

Phil laughs, a little, and Dan joins in.

 

“Pretty sure laughing about me loving you is, like, against the rules.”

 

“ _Same_ ,” Phil says, in a terrible Dan voice. “So lame. You gonna get your phone out and, like, text me an emoji about all of this?”

 

“ _Text me an emoji_ ,” Dan says, laughing at him. He's so beautiful when he smiles that Phil almost can't look at him. “Now who's lame?”

 

“Still you,” Phil says, and leans forwards as much as he can to kiss him.

 

It's surreal. It's surreal to feel happy after how everything's been lately, how terrible and inescapable it's been, how he's felt for so long like he's been running down dark corridor after dark corridor, trapped in a maze with no hope of escape. Touching Dan's hair and kissing him like he needs to, like he'll die if he doesn't, feels like the door being thrown open, the whole place flooding with light. He's free and he's safe and now he can kiss Dan and everything's fine, everything's more than fine-

 

Dan pulls away, much too soon. Phil makes a stupid disappointed noise and takes way too long to open his eyes. When Dan laughs at him this time the sound is soft and fond.

 

“You know you look like corned beef right now, don't you?” He reminds him.

 

“Ugh,” Phil says, trying to pull him closer again. “Come on. What's it gonna do, kill me?”

 

Dan laughs again.

 

“It's way, _way_ too soon for jokes like that,” He says, but kisses Phil all the same.

 

-

 

_One year later_   
  


 

“I'm not wearing it.”

 

“Dan.”

 

“No way. I – no. Listen, first I had to get up early-”

 

“You wanted to come with me, you _offered_ -”

 

“That was before the shirt,” Dan says, holding his finger up like he's just made an excellent point. His lack of a shirt and bed hair make him look like an exceptionally mad scientist. “Now there's a shirt and I wanna go back to bed.”

 

“Dan,” Phil says again, half-laughing. He can see the corners of Dan's mouth twitching and knows he's dying to laugh too. “I think it's cute.”

 

Dan looks at him. Phil looks right back, pausing in buttoning up his jeans. They have a very brief, very ridiculous stare-off for a moment, then Dan gets up and goes to fetch the shirt in question from where it's hanging over the back of the wardrobe door. Phil rolls his eyes a little, fondly, watching him make a show of tugging it off the hanger so he can hold it up in front of himself and raise his eyebrows at Phil.

 

“Cute,” He says.

 

The shirt says _bloodsucker_.

 

“Not – not by itself, alright,” Phil says. “But that's why it matches mine.”

 

“Right, yeah,” Dan says, shaking Phil's shirt where it's hanging, white printed words proclaiming _I'm with the bloodsucker_. “Right, yeah, that's – shut up,” He adds, because Phil's just laughing at him now.

 

“It's adorable,” He says, still laughing when Dan throws the shirt on the bed and comes close, touching his hip. It's a surprise when he kisses him but a happy one, a laugh still bubbling up in his throat 'til he pulls away, Dan laughing himself by then. “They're a gift, we have to.”

 

“A gift,” Dan scoffs. “Chocolate's a gift. New shoes are a gift. Even a _DVD_ is a gift-”

 

“Dan,” Phil says. He pauses, smile fading a little. They look at each other for a moment, standing close still. “If you really hate it we don't have to wear them. I think Bryony just meant it as a joke, you know. Like. Making a point at the demonstration, that kind of thing.”

 

Dan sighs.

 

“I'll wear it,” He grumbles. “You're doing the face so I'll wear it.”

 

“The face? I wasn't even doing a face.” Dan ignores him, darting forwards to kiss him just above his top lip before moving away to grab the discarded shirt off the bed. “I'm serious, Dan, if you don't want to wear them we won't.”

 

“You're doing the face, the, the – you can't help it,” Dan says, voice muffled when he pulls the shirt on, his hair wilder than ever when he emerges. “It's just your face, and – and you look at me and I just have to do...well, whatever you want. Like, that's how it works.”

 

Phil feels himself flushing a little. He covers it by finally fastening his jeans and going to grab his own shirt from the wardrobe door.

 

“I'll remember that next time you don't wanna take the bins out,” He says.

 

Dan laughs.

 

-

 

It's a warm day out, sun shining down on the square and making Phil squint through his glasses.

 

“I can go and get your sunglasses,” Dan offers, for the tenth time. Of course he brought sunglasses – maybe vampires have some sixth sense about the sun coming out that Phil hasn't heard of yet.

 

“I'll be ok,” He says. “There's a cloud. Look, right there.” He points up at the sky. “Gonna cover the sun, any minute.”

 

Dan just rolls his eyes at him. Phil can tell, somehow, even despite the sunglasses. He hands someone a flyer with a quick smile.

 

“Peej said he can give us a lift to my mum and dad's next weekend, by the way,” Dan says, after a moment of the two of them handing out flyers in silence. “He's headed to see some _girl_ and he can drop us off on the way.”

 

“Sophie's not _some girl_ , Dan,” Phil says, grinning at him.

 

“She dumped him 'cause he was in a blood farm!”

 

“It's not as simple as that,” Phil says. “He's fine, it's fine. He's – he's -” He thinks of the last time he'd spoken to PJ – he's currently visiting his own parents for his mum's birthday. He'd sounded so happy when he'd talked about Sophie, this soft, shy quality to his voice that made Phil feel weirdly like a proud dad. “He's happy. So I'm happy for him.”

 

“I'm happy for him!” Dan says, clearly affronted that Phil would assume otherwise. “Don't say it like that, I'm _so_ happy for him. I'm just,” He struggles with what exactly he just is for a moment, Phil watching him with amusement. “Inherently distrustful.”

 

“That's one way of putting it,” Phil teases, laughing when Dan scowls. “Don't look like that, I love your inherent distrusfulness.”

 

“You'd better,” Dan says, in a mock-grumpy voice, but he kisses Phil all the same. “I'm gonna go and grab some badges. I hate flyers. You want-?”

 

“Nah, I'm good here.”

 

“Won't be a sec,” He says, and walks off. Phil experiences a weird moment, a flashback of sorts, remembering meeting Dan for the first time at one of these things and watching him walk away as a stranger, knowing nothing about him.

 

Now his eyes follow Dan through the huddles of teenagers in chokers and shimmery neck lotion and black-clad probably-vamps and he feels so warm and fond that he might choke on it, so light with good feeling that he ought to be floating a few feet above the chewing-gum spotted ground.

 

It's been so long and yet Phil can't believe that he has this – that he's allowed to be happy. Tonight they'll head home and probably watch a movie, leaning up against each other on the couch, and Phil can just reach out and hold Dan's hand and know he'll squeeze Phil's fingers the second he does, wanting to keep him close. He knows he'll wake up tomorrow morning and look over at the other side of the bed and Dan'll be there, looking right back at him. He knows when he goes back to work on Monday they'll walk there together, hand in hand, ready to take on anything the night might throw at them.

 

He's so lost in his thoughts that it takes him a second to notice when Dan's walking back over to him with a collecting tin. He smiles, and Phil loves him so much that it hurts.

 

It almost feels impossible that they're here, the sun shining down on the two of them in the square where they first met.

 

“Can I interest you in a badge?” Dan asks in a mock-serious tone when he gets close enough, waggling his eyebrows.

 

Phil laughs. All of a sudden, he feels impossibly, brilliantly happy.

 

“I bet you say that to all the boys,” He says, and kisses him.


End file.
